When kicking off the boondoggle “Green New Deal” project, one Biden climate advisor described it as “the Biden climate strategy on wheels.” True, that.
Posted by Leslie Eastman
Using the 2022 “Inflation Reduction Act” as cover for the progressive “Green New Deal,” the Biden administration funded a plan that aimed to eliminate gasoline-powered delivery trucks and deploy tens of thousands of battery-electric mail trucks by 2028.
And, like so many initiatives linked to Biden, it ended in complete failure. Republicans in Congress are working to claw-back the remaining monies.
The nearly $10 billion project — which called for more than 35,000 battery-powered US Postal Service (USPS) vehicles to be completed by September 2028 — was funded in part by $3 billion in funding from former President Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
As of this month, the project is well behind schedule despite taxpayers forking over $1.7 billion — prompting Capitol Hill Republicans to try to rescind the remaining nearly $1.3 billion earmarked from the IRA.
“Biden’s multi-billion-dollar EV fleet for the USPS is lost in the mail and more than $1 billion is postmarked to order more,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) told The Post.
“I am working to cancel the order and return the money to the sender, the American people. The rescissions package is a great start, but Congress must keep its foot on the pedal and make DOGE a lifestyle by stamping out waste like this on a regular basis.”
When kicking off the project that was supposed to generate a fleet of over 60,000 electric delivery trucks, one Biden climate advisor described it as “the Biden climate strategy on wheels.”
The post office said it is spending nearly $10 billion to electrify its aging fleet, including installing modern charging infrastructure at hundreds of postal facilities nationwide and purchasing at least 66,000 electric delivery trucks in the next five years. The spending includes $3 billion in funding approved under a landmark climate and health policy adopted by Congress last year.
The White House hailed the announcement as a way to sustain reliable mail service to Americans while modernizing the fleet, reducing operating costs and clearing the air in neighborhoods across the country.
“This is the Biden climate strategy on wheels and the U.S. Postal Service delivering for the American people,” said White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi.
Truer words were never spoken by a Biden official.
The only thing that worked well in Biden’s Oval Office was the auto-pen.
The windshield is way too small!
Of all the applications for EV, beyond golf carts, postal delivery vehicles could have been one.
Except, no garages (winters get cold).
No charging stations properly distanced from the building.
Of course doing the gold plated versions was a keen idea.
/sarc
If President Otto Penn’s plan for EV mail tucks had succeeded, just think how more letters would have been “burnt in mail”?
I see what you did there! 🙂
This sounds as though the US federal government was taking its cues from the province of Quebec or vice versa. Quebec claimed it would aim to convert a large percentage or all of its school bus fleet during the decade of the 2020s. Instead the school bus federation soon found that 87% of
of their routes had turned out to be unprofitable. As a result, Lion Electric, the province’s main supplier of these vehicles, came close to being liquidated as demand fell precipitously, and Quebec no longer makes the purchase of these buses compulsory. Instead, it has decided to extend the working lives of its diesel school buses by two years In other words, stick with what works and never mind fashionable conversions that can’t deliver the goods.
I want to post a partial affirmative to this failed mandate ‘green’ initiative.
On its positive side, postal delivery is a near ‘ideal’ EV application. Not high mileage per day, lots of start/stop, all night central charging (with upgraded grid infrastructure).
On the negative side, two majors.
On the negative side, you forgt to mention that most US Post Office locations DO NOT have existing electrical infrastucture to charge a fleet of EV delivery vehicles overnight. So, what is the cost to upgrade the local post offices for this?
Note that there are about 31,000 Postal Service-managed retail offices in the US (ref: https://facts.usps.com/size-and-scope/ ). At an estimated conservative cost of $50,000 to provide oernight charging for an estimated average of 10 delivery trucks per postal station, the associated up-front total cost would sum to about 31,000*$50,000 = $1.6 BILLION.
Anybody seen a budget carve out for that . . . above and beyond just the cost of the delivery EV’s?
Now, about maintenance and repair.
The infrastructure for ICE has been in place for decades.
Just saying, it is another indirect cost.
The failure of the USPS electric vehicle plan provides another stark contrast between private industry initiatives (like Amazon’s highly successful electric delivery vehicle fleet) and the inefficiency of Government trying to do ANYTHING. Amazon listened to their delivery people on how to make the trucks work better in the real world, and delivered specifications to a company (Rivian) that was already producing highly-regarded TVs. USPS, on the other hand, produced a design by committee and then announced a competition and awarded the contract to produce their EVs to (presumably) the lowest bidder, who had no practical experience building such vehicles. Surprise, it didn’t work out. Doh!
I haven’t heard much about DOGE, they need to get busy putting government on the right path. It would seem to me that The Inflation Reduction Act would be ripe for the picking.
I was filling my beloved 2010 Mazda 6 yesterday and a postal worker drove up to the pump next to me driving a gasoline powered version of these new USPS vans. So I had no choice but to ask him what he thought of these things.
He had been assigned the new van four days earlier. It is nine feet wide and nineteen feet long, a fair bit larger than the old van it replaced. If it looks top heavy; well, yes indeed it is top heavy. He told me that you have to be careful going around corners and can’t take them too fast or the van will tip.
The area postal center he works out of recently received eighteen of these vans. Most are gasoline versions, but a few are EV’s. The EV’s are being watched closely to see how well they perform. For now, the EV versions are assigned to shorter routes which serve clustered neighborhood mail boxes.
I asked the postman if he thought the EV’s would work out eventually. He is skeptical they will do the job that is expected of them. But he thinks it’s too early right now to draw definite conclusions.
The use of the EVs for “shorter routes which serve clustered neighborhood mail boxes” makes sense since ICEs are not very efficient in such circumstances in comparison.
Another remark the postman made was that the central mail facility in our area does not have the charging infrastructure needed to support an all EV delivery fleet.
Going to a majority EV fleet relatively quickly requires money which isn’t in the near-term budget planning for his particular mail facility.
Another major factor is that this single mail facility handles a very large volume of mail for delivery to a fairly large geographic area within southeastern Washington state.
If an all EV fleet was to be imposed on this area, it is likely that constructing a series of smaller mail distribution facilities would be necessary simply to keep travel distances low enough to allow overnight charging of the EV delivery fleet.
Money for a series of smaller mail distribution facilities isn’t in the budget planning even for the long term.
I was not suggesting an ‘all EV’ fleet but in towns EVs are definitely more efficient than ICEs but in country areas the opposite is true.
Another day another place another boondoggle-
Canberra’s issue-plagued $1.6 million hybrid electric fire truck is out of action again – ABC News
The company that makes electric shuttle buses for Chattanooga, TN could most likely build electric mail trucks and have them sturdy, reliable, not top-heavy, with long range. Aside from a federal grant to get started in 1992, Chattanooga’s electric shuttle buses have been funded by donation boxes on each vehicle and at the two stations, plus a cut of pay parking meter and lot fees.
The original buses used lead-acid battery packs and there was a swap station at the old railroad station. Then they switched to NiMH which gave them enough range to run almost a full day, only needing a top up charge before parking for overnight charging. In the late 2010’s they had nearly all been changed to Lithium-Ion. That gave them enough power to run all day.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find they’ve been switching to Lithium-Iron-Phosphate.
Another thing that could be done is what used to be done to London’s double decker buses. At regular intervals, or when wear and damage dictated, the buses would go to a total overhaul shop. Every worn or damaged part got replaced. Paint was stripped and repainted. Engines, transmissions and other mechanicals were rebuilt or replaced. When the buses rolled out they were every bit as good as new.
Take the existing LLV’s and *do that*, along with adding air conditioning and other ‘creature comforts’. If the design plans still exist, get them and use them as a basis for building all new LLV mail trucks. Instead of rebuilding the old engines, transmissions, and rear axles, get all new ones, so the entire fleet has the same equipment.
One possible source could be Mahindra’s engines and axles and other parts they use on their Roxxor UTV. The Roxor is essentially a 1960’s Jeep with a mix of parts from later years. In many US States they can be made street legal. Mahindra has had a license to make Jeeps since WW2.
How good are Mahindra’s parts? They’re popular with owners of Jeeps built by Willys and AMC because they’re as good as or *better* than the originals.
The Roxxor is so good that Chrysler demanded Mahindra change the grille. But then that wasn’t enough, Chrysler demanded Mahindra had to put completely different front ends on the bodies. Original or reproduction Jeep or older Roxor parts should fit to make the current model Jeep-ish.
Why? Because imported and made street legal, a Roxor could be bought for about $20K, and with a simple ECU hack the power and 55 MPH speed limiter could be disabled, enabling speed up to 65 MPH without any further modifications to the 2.7L turbodiesel engine.
Postal delivery is a niche application that EVs can be quite useful for.
Those used by delivers walking door to door don’t drive much as they are storage for mail, finish one bag, go back to truck for another. (Old way in Canada was roadside lock boxes filled by someone in advance, vandalism was a problem, many deliverers took bus to their area which takes time.)
However the deliverers may drive to deliver packages after finishing walking route thus use range.
EVs are easy to start compared to ICEs.
(Some postal vehicles have right-hand driver position to deliver to roadside mail boxes which are common in rural areas.)
Other niche uses of EVs are service people who go to a location and stay there until your old plumbing is fixed.
Canada Post now has some EV delivery vehicles, I do not know how they are working out. But CP is failing financially.
CP has been moving from large delivery vans to small ones, they are more maneuverable for delivering into complexes of buildings and use less energy.
I’d like to learn why the project is behind, just from a management viewpoint.