United States Postal Service Buys 66,000 Electric Vehicles

The United States Postal Service is purchasing 66,000 electric vehicles as they work to upgrade their fleet. The entire purchase will bring 106,000 new vehicles to the fleet by 2028. The cost for the upgrade is in the neighborhood of about $9.5 billion, about $3 billion of which is from the Inflation Reduction Act.

The majority of the vehicles are “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles” purchased from Defense Contractor Oshkosh. Of the 60,000 postal vehicles being purchased from Oshkosk over 2/3 will be electric. Beyond the addition of Next Generation Delivery Vehicles, USPS will purchase another 45,000 vehicles from private automakers with about half of those EVs. This purchase of 66,000 electric vehicles is inline with a Postal Service goal to purchase exclusively zero-emission vehicles by 2026 and a larger trend of fleet owners moving to electric vehicles.

This purchase is an important purchase for reasons beyond the price tag and the move to EVs. The typical post office vehicle is about 30 years old now. It doesn’t have air conditioning and lacks airbags and other newer safety features. The current vehicles also get about eight miles a gallon. Over the lifespan of the vehicles going electric should generate some serious cost savings for the agency. This is an opportunity to really modernize the fleet while also going electric.

That is the big news from the post office, and the big news within the EV industry as a whole. And once these vehicles hit the road, this should save all of us taxpayers some serious money because of the difference in cost per mile driven between gas and electric vehicles.

United States Postal Service Buys 66,000 Electric Vehicles Video Transcript:

Grant Harrell : Hello, this is Grant Harrell with MarketScale Transportation and the mobility-focused video podcast series Are We There Yet? And speaking of Are We There Yet, the United States Postal Service modernizing its fleet, going electric. Are they there yet?

Well, they are certainly making their way. Big news from the United States Postal Service is they just announced that they are modernizing its fleet and going electric. By 2026, plans include the purchase of about 60,000 vehicles from leading manufacturer and defense contractor Oshkosh Corporation.

Of those 60,000 vehicles, about two-thirds, the majority will be EV. Plans also include the purchase of an additional 46,000 vehicles from other manufacturers, also with the majority of those being EV. The program itself will be funded with about $9.

6 billion that the United States Postal Service will spend on the new vehicles, of which about $3 billion coming from the Inflation Reduction Act. And what a great time to be modernizing the fleet. The average post office vehicle, to give you an idea, is about 30 years old now and lacks a lot of the newer technology and safety features, no airbags or air conditioning, for example, and needs some improvement on the MPG.

Current post office vehicle gets about 8. 2 miles per gallon, so going electric is going to result in some serious cost savings for the office, as well as, ultimately, for us as taxpayers. So, some great news there.

And now to share some insights from Oshkosh Corporation, talking a little bit more about the partnership with the United States Postal Service and how important this modernization initiative is. We have a market scale exclusive with Bryan Brandt, the Chief Marketing Officer for Oshkosh Corporation, sharing some of their insights about this big announcement.

Bryan Brandt: We are honored to have been selected nearly two years ago by the United States Postal Service to support their important work by manufacturing American-made, next-generation delivery vehicles that will connect every home and business across the United States. With this recent announcement by the USPS, Oshkosh Corporation is ready to support their efforts to deploy an increasing number of electric vehicles to communities across America by 2028. Oshkosh will deliver the first next-generation delivery vehicles in 2023. This announcement is consistent with our efforts as a leading industrial technology company to design purpose-built electric vehicles. The USPS NGDV will join Oshkosh’s growing platform of environmentally responsible electric vehicles that serve the fire and emergency, refuse, defense, and construction industries.