Tens of thousands of new vehicles procured by the U.S. Postal Service, where relic of the Trump era Louis DeJoy remains at the helm, will be electric, dramatically reversing the agency’s plans from an earlier initiative under which only 10 percent of newly obtained vehicles would be.
The newly announced overall total of electric vehicles joining the Postal Service fleet is 66,000, including 45,000 from a defense contractor, Oshkosh Defense, and 21,000 from mainstream vehicle companies. The electric vehicles from Oshkosh will comprise three-fourths of what the Postal Service is obtaining from that company, while the electric vehicles from commercial manufacturers will comprise a little under half the total obtained from that source. The Postal Service still has other needs for long-distance travel that aren’t served as well by electric vehicles requiring recharging, but the new figures represent a stark jump in procurement totals over prior plans — which were the subject of litigation in which a coalition of state officials including New York Attorney General Letitia James joined. The agency gradually increased the share of its new vehicles it said would be electric, reaching 40 percent within recent months.
Notably, the tens of thousands of new electric vehicles will be supported in significant part by $3 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act, which is the large legislative initiative approved by Democrats in the Senate as a budget reconciliation deal, meaning they could bypass the filibuster rules, and signed by Biden. It’s the same bill providing other support for clean energy initiatives, like tax benefits for small businesses transitioning to solar power, making improvements to energy efficiency in buildings, and acquiring vehicles running on clean energy. The Postal Service holds over 217,000 vehicles, meaning the totals in both electric and gas-powered vehicles set for purchase over coming years aren’t enough to replace the entire fleet — assuming its overall size is closely maintained.
John Podesta, a White House senior adviser for clean energy innovation, talked up the possibility to The Washington Post of the new plans at the Postal Service sparking more aggressive action at non-governmental delivery companies that compete with the agency. “I think it puts pressure on them to up their game, too,” he said. “If the Postal Service can move out with this kind of aggressive plan, the public expects these companies that have made these long-term announcements to catch up in the near term.”
DeJoy, meanwhile, has faced consistent criticism since taking over, whether that’s for slowdowns in the speed of certain mail delivery soon after assuming his role during the 2020 election season, cost-cutting plans outlining slower delivery for some mail, or his imposition of an initiative for consolidating some agency operations. Information available earlier indicated that his plans would eventually create nearly two dozen centralized Sortation and Delivery Centers across the U.S., and local postal facilities losing operations to these stretched across nearly a dozen and a half states.
