USPS Electrification Project Far Behind Schedule

The Biden administration’s plan to electrify the U.S. Postal Service truck fleet is behind schedule as the manufacturer lags in delivering vehicles, reports Jacob Bogage for The Washington Post.

“The Postal Service is slated to purchase 60,000 “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles,” or NGDVs — mostly electric — from defense contractor Oshkosh, which has a long history of producing military and heavy industrial vehicles, but not postal trucks,” Bogage explains. The government has, as of November, only received 93 trucks, far short of the 3,000 they expected to date.

According to sources, the company is struggling to calibrate air bags, and the vehicles suffered significant water leaks in testing. Oshkosh is only producing one truck per day. “The wide-ranging production problems have not been previously reported and were not mentioned in an inspector general audit published in October.”

To avoid losing funding for the project under the next administration, the Postal Service could switch to another contractor: USPS already uses over 1,000 Ford eTransit vans for deliveries.