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Banea-Vaedr t1_j13up7a wrote

Sure, yea. Alright. Do it. That sounds like the right choice to me. Saves money, at least.

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merien_nl t1_j13z6z2 wrote

It is a service of the Federal Government, why put in the headline it will use federal funds for this. Isn't that obvious?

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RnDanger t1_j141v3f wrote

USPS to Save Billions in Federal Funds by Electrifying Delivery Fleet

FIFY

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Ground2ChairMissile t1_j146in8 wrote

Replying to RnDanger (#995,181)

For the UK version of PC Magazine? Hardly the target audience.

The reason they wrote the story (which isn't even in their coverage field) is that any and all news on electric vehicles does great in Google Discovery SEO.

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vacuous_comment t1_j14fppt wrote

Fuck yeah, electric delivery vehicles are a no brainer.

We get the Amazon Rivians delivering to us now.

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DBDude t1_j14s59a wrote

If anything is begging to be electrified, it's final leg shipping. Daily routes aren't long, and they can charge overnight. And by that I mean vehicles designed from the ground up to be electric so they can take advantage of the technology, not whatever it is the USPS bought.

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kronicfeld t1_j14tijz wrote

What other funds would they use

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johnjohn4011 t1_j14v99h wrote

Sounds like a good job creator to me - why not? As if full on privately owned corporations don't receive gazillions in aid through tax breaks.

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Konras t1_j156xh7 wrote

Replying to merien_nl (#994,971)

That is a bait for people to think government is subsidizing private company. I almost though so myself before I checked Google what USPS stands for and who owns it.

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Free_Dome_Lover t1_j15gw2r wrote

Don't forget that they held open bidding to build this new electric fleet and they wound up choosing a company affiliated with the Postmaster that has never built an electric vehicle before who immediately pivoted to building a high efficiency gas truck instead.

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RoboNyaa t1_j160byr wrote

Best part of the upgrade? They'll finally have AC.

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raygundan t1_j166b0o wrote

Replying to vacuous_comment (#996,196)

I don't even know when it started for our area-- been seeing the same truck type for a while, but it wasn't until I just happened to be outside when one was pulling away that I realized they weren't just "a regular gas cargo van with amazon branding" like I'd assumed.

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Ok-Welder-4816 t1_j166byd wrote

Replying to Konras (#998,343)

Some are public that you wouldn't expect, too. Don't know if you guys have Purolator in the states, but it used to be a private courier here in Canada and now is either majority or wholly owned by Canada Post.

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port1337user t1_j166jeo wrote

Replying to boundbylife (#998,399)

Because that's all people click on nowadays, we're very much a culture that prefers to be outraged. Where have you been the last decade? Do you even pay attention to news outside of reddit??

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raygundan t1_j166nr8 wrote

Makes sense... the longest route in the US is less than 200 miles long, and it probably isn't even relevant since it's one of the rural routes driven by a carrier using their own vehicle.

If anything was tailor-made for EVs, it's the short-to-medium range stop-and-go of a delivery route. No idle losses, regenerative braking between the many stops, predictable distance, daily return to a central location where charging can be handled.

Edit: A little more googling says that the average route is only 24 miles, and that nearly all of them are less than 70 miles. We should have gone electric for the average postal route 30 years ago... even boring old lead-acid batteries could have managed that!

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Ok-Welder-4816 t1_j166pd1 wrote

Replying to RnDanger (#995,170)

Well, there is an initial large capital outlay that, hopefully, will save money in the long run.

Almost certainly it will, but for all we know the US could get taken out by a giant meteor before the investment gets made back. So at least in the short term, it's "spending".

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jdjcjdbfhx t1_j16d2w0 wrote

I wonder how the conservatives will twist this

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MpVpRb t1_j16e3ld wrote

Postal delivery is the PERFECT use for EVs

Too bad they ignored Tesla, GM, Ford, etc and gave the contract to a fukkin' defense contractor. Worst choice ever!

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Fragrant_Onion7021 t1_j16ml12 wrote

Didn’t they JUST replace a ton of their trucks and people were like why the fuck did you get gas models and not electric?

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bobjr94 t1_j16wei7 wrote

Replying to Sawsall (#1,002,386)

Federal regulations says they must last 80K miles, most cars are warrantied to 100k or longer. There are teslas on the road with over 200k miles or more on their original batteries. 400k on prius taxies and ubers.

How far does a postal delivery van go in a day 20 miles, 30 miles ? A small 35KW battery could do double that, in 10 years if it's lost 15% capacity it could still do it.

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za419 t1_j17478j wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#996,239)

The current mail truck fleet is a design that's 40 years old and ended production almost 30 years ago. At this point, the most impressive thing about them is that they still run...

I don't think we should feel bad about retiring a vehicle that old

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poocoocoo t1_j17850z wrote

Great now can I actually get my packages?

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1PooNGooN3 t1_j17dtj4 wrote

Does this money come from the BILLIONS of dollars that the usps was required to pay in to the fed for pretty much no reason? “Pre-funding”

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nyaaaa t1_j17vu9r wrote

Replying to Free_Dome_Lover (#999,124)

To be fair, the "second" option is a 150 person company which retired its truck after producing 40 because it didn't meet customer specs.

So no idea who came in third, or what their product would look like.

There is a struggling excellent electric power train and battery maker that pretends it can assemble cars as well, on the market who would be the perfect fit for whoever to make them electric instead.

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Seuros t1_j185qrh wrote

They will explode and burn the mail. mark my words.

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