Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Transportation Government Power

USPS Finalizes Plans To Buy Gas-Powered Delivery Fleet, Defying the EPA and White House (yahoo.com) 419

echo123 shares a report from the Washington Post: The U.S. Postal Service finalized plans Wednesday to purchase up to 148,000 gasoline-powered mail delivery trucks (Warning: paywalled; alternative source), defying Biden administration officials' objections that the multibillion dollar contract would undercut the nation's climate goals. The White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency asked the Postal Service this month to reassess its plan to replace its delivery fleet with 90% gas-powered trucks and 10% electric vehicles, at a cost of as much as $11.3 billion. The contract, orchestrated by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, offers only a 0.4-mile-per-gallon fuel economy improvement over the agency's current fleet.

Federal climate science officials said the Postal Service vastly underestimated the emissions of its proposed fleet of "Next Generation Delivery Vehicles," or NGDVs, and accused the mail agency of fudging the math of its environmental studies to justify such a large purchase of internal combustion engine trucks. But DeJoy, a holdover from the Trump administration, has called his agency's investment in green transportation "ambitious," even as environmental groups and even other postal leaders have privately questioned it. [...] Environmental advocates assailed the agency's decision, saying it would lock in decades of climate-warming emissions and worsen air pollution. The Postal Service plans call for the new trucks, built by Oshkosh Defense, to hit the streets in 2023 and remain in service for at least 20 years.

DeJoy said in a statement that the agency was open to pursuing more electric vehicles if "additional funding - from either internal or congressional sources -- becomes available." But he added that the agency had "waited long enough" for new vehicles. The White House and EPA had asked the Postal Service to conduct a supplemental environmental impact statement on the new fleet and to hold a public hearing on its procurement plan. The Postal Service rejected those requests: Mark Guilfoil, the agency's vice president of supply management, said they "would not add value" to the mail service's analysis. Now that the Postal Service has finalized it agreement with Oshkosh, environmentalists are expected to file lawsuits challenging it on the grounds that the agency's environmental review failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act. They will probably base their case on the litany of problems Biden administration officials previously identified with the agency's technical analysis.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

USPS Finalizes Plans To Buy Gas-Powered Delivery Fleet, Defying the EPA and White House

Comments Filter:
  • by echo123 ( 1266692 ) on Friday February 25, 2022 @05:00AM (#62301975)
    ...Not a mechanical engineer, or even a motor vehicle driver since decades ago, but given the many, many, (exponential in a big way), starts and stops of a postal route vehicle over what is hoped to be a long lifetime of public investment, (besides the obviously disgusting pollution factor as we strive for energy independence during these trying times), isn't an electric motor just way, way more energy efficient and lower cost overall mechanically for such a task? (Asking for a friend who is questioning this government decision and where it came from).
    • Yes, electric motors have been very good for many years. It's just that one small pesky problem of battery designs only just starting to reach capacity and longevity of gasoline engines.

      The other problem is that the current USPS delivery fleet is well past it's designed lifetime. They need new vehicles NOW.
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Having trouble finding an average miles driven per day, but I'd be very surprised if it wasn't well within the range of current EVs.

        Taxi companies love EVs. The cars need very little maintenance and the batteries last longer than fossil fuel engines. Plus a battery replacement is relatively easy compared to an engine replacement.

        Are their preferred suppliers just way behind on the technology? There are electric busses that have been in production for years now, and in China they became the bulk of sales abo

        • by Monoman ( 8745 )

          Vehicle MPG ratings (and ranges) are determined by the EPA. I would guess their "real world" tests do not accurately represent how a USPS vehicle would be used and therefore their MPG estimates would not be accurate. USPS vehicles have a lot of stop and go behavior as well as idle time. I honestly have no idea if gasoline or electric would be best in the USPS fleet.

          https://www.epa.gov/compliance... [epa.gov]

          https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPD... [epa.gov]

          • by kqs ( 1038910 ) on Friday February 25, 2022 @07:26AM (#62302221)

            USPS vehicles have a lot of stop and go behavior as well as idle time. I honestly have no idea if gasoline or electric would be best in the USPS fleet.

            I also don't have all the data needed, but *stop and go" is pretty much the ideal case for electric and the worst case for gas. Aside from a few rural routes, USPS trucks are in the sweet spot for current EV tech.

            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              by bobthecow ( 67269 )

              This is the part I'm not sure about. It's not "a few rural routes", but I don't know what percentage of the routes and vehicles on those routes are rural. The only documentation I've found has said there are 80,000 rural routes and 133,000 rural carriers. What percentage of the vehicles will be used on rural routes where an electric vehicle probably doesn't make sense?

              https://www.uspsoig.gov/blog/d... [uspsoig.gov].

              I found this which says the USPS has "over 200,000" vehicles.

              https://about.usps.com/news/st... [usps.com]

              I agree th

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday February 25, 2022 @07:33AM (#62302235) Homepage Journal

            Well idle time in an EV used zero power. Stop start really depends on how hard they accelerate and how good the regen is. For a vehicle like that having regen right down to nearly stopped will be important.

            How many miles a day do you think they need? 200 miles? That's easily within the range of consumer EVs from a few years ago. In Europe there are commercial vans that can do that on the market already.

        • by mobby_6kl ( 668092 ) on Friday February 25, 2022 @07:57AM (#62302299)

          The routes are like 25 miles on average lol.

          There are some longer rural ones but even the longest one is 185 miles but IIRC the rural routes are deliverted in the driver's vehicle.

          This is an absolute no brainer. Known short routes, lots of idling, stop and go driving. Overnight charging in the depot. You couldn't possibly have a better use case for EVs. Just by E-Transists from Ford or something goddam it.

          • How much infrastructure changes are required at the depot to charge that many vehicles overnight? I'm all in for switching to electric, but it seems that the cost of the vehicles isn't the only cost associated with electric fleets. There's at least 100 delivery trucks i can see at my local mail depot. I wonder how much cost and time it would take to have infrastructure to charge all those vehicles. Not saying it's impossible, just something to consider.

            • by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Friday February 25, 2022 @08:55AM (#62302443) Journal
              Overnight charging for postal trucks will use simple 120 V 20 amp. Each draws as much as a toaster. Upgrade is cheap, grid capacity at night is cheap.

              It is just the last money grab by gas car makers, When all the private parcel deliver companies switch to EVs to save cost, USPS will be wasting money in gas, and the same politicians who shoved this gas van monstrocity down the throat of USPS will be saying, USPS is inefficient, wastes money ...

            • by lrichardson ( 220639 ) on Friday February 25, 2022 @09:20AM (#62302537) Homepage

              Heck with the overnight charging, go with the rapid stuff.

              Fed Ex is going electric in a big way.
              https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/1... [cnbc.com]
              If a private company believes it is better financially to go this route, then there is no effin' way a government entity shouldn't do the same.

              Heck, while the Fed Ex trucks are big babies, they are reasonably priced, and made by GM.
              Oh, wait ... the contract for the USPS was made by a Trump appointee, to Oshkosh Defense Corp ... let me check ... yep, PAC donations go 2:1 to GOP candidates, and they explicitly donated to Trump ..

      • It's difficult to believe the answer is as simple as you say for such a long-term decision and major public investment.

        As long as I have been alive, I have known batteries to be replaceable, (and to even become rechargeable), given the end of their usefulness.
        • by kqs ( 1038910 )

          Also these trucks will have to last decades, and battery tech is rapidly improving and becoming cheaper. When the first batteries start wearing out, the replacements will be cheaper and better than the originals. New gas engines and fuel injectors will cost the same or more.

      • by Sique ( 173459 ) on Friday February 25, 2022 @06:08AM (#62302093) Homepage
        Here in Austria, the Austrian Post uses electric delivery vans (Nissan eNV200) since 2015. German Bundespost even has its own manufacturer for electric delivery vans (Streetscooter) since 2014. There is no reason why USPS should not be able to get hold of proven electric delivery vans right now.
    • There used to be a type of vehicle in the UK called a milk float [wikipedia.org], which was a battery operated vehicle for delivering milk in sub-urban neighbourhoods. They were slow, but for the purpose they were used for they were pretty good. The reason they went out of fashion is most people stopped having their milk delivered and there was no longer a market for that kind of vehicle.

      This was what they achieved with tech designed mostly in the 1950s, inefficient motors, old battery designs and heavy iron frames. The ma

  • Short sighted corrupt individuals in the USPS it seems.

  • The main problem for me is that an electric car costs a fortune compared to even a new petrol one, and still moreso compared to a second-hand one. I don't imagine that the USPO is buying second-hand, but what is the price difference for electric cargo vehicles?

    If you're shopping in a budget the ecological issues don't make new money magically appear.

    • by Teun ( 17872 )
      Sure the upfront cost might be more than an EV but the cost to the environment should also be considered.
      Yes I know that's un-American.
      • but the cost to the environment should also be considered. Yes I know that's un-American.

        Not on the internet, where if it even saves one butterfly the cost to tax payers does not matter. Practicality also doesn't matter.

    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      The main problem for me is that an electric car costs a fortune compared to even a new petrol one, and still moreso compared to a second-hand one. I don't imagine that the USPO is buying second-hand, but what is the price difference for electric cargo vehicles?

      If you're shopping in a budget the ecological issues don't make new money magically appear.

      Well, electric cars do cost more upfront, especially if you're trying to compare a midrange electric to a bargain basement econobox. But for postal vehicles, th

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Over the vehicle's lifetime an EV will be much, much cheaper. Cheaper "fuel", less maintenance. Even less wear on the brakes due to regen.

      Any organization that can budget for any reasonable length of time will see that EVs are cheaper overall. This decision makes little sense, it's going to cost USPS a fortune to keep those vehicles running.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by nagora ( 177841 )

        Over the vehicle's lifetime an EV will be much, much cheaper. Cheaper "fuel", less maintenance. Even less wear on the brakes due to regen.

        Any organization that can budget for any reasonable length of time will see that EVs are cheaper overall. This decision makes little sense, it's going to cost USPS a fortune to keep those vehicles running.

        I don't know exactly how the USPO is funded but I'd bet they don't have surity of budget that goes even 5 years ahead and that's probably not "any reasonable length of time".

        If they vans they have are falling apart they need replaced now with the money they have now.

        It will cost them more in the long run, but the long run isn't here yet. Such is the world.

        • I don't know exactly how the USPO is funded...

          The USPS is funded by people paying them to deliver stuff. Their budget is not at the whim of Congress.

  • Ideology ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Friday February 25, 2022 @05:36AM (#62302053)

    The contract, orchestrated by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, offers only a 0.4-mile-per-gallon fuel economy improvement over the agency's current fleet.

    What a waste of money. This is what happens when somebody runs a business based on a combination of ultra right wing ideology and stupid rather than the dollars and cents business case. This will pander well with the Trumpist base but to anybody with a lick of business sense it's just ... stupid. The future is not the ICE, it's electric. These museum pieces will become money pits the USPS customer base has to subsidise long before those 20 years are up.

  • by Orgasmatron ( 8103 ) on Friday February 25, 2022 @05:47AM (#62302065)

    This is someone who clearly thinks that the Post Office's mission is to move and deliver mail. Then I saw it in the article: "a holdover from the Trump administration" and it all made sense.

    • This is the text that immediately preceded the text you chose to comment on,

      "Federal climate science officials said the Postal Service vastly underestimated the emissions of its proposed fleet of "Next Generation Delivery Vehicles," or NGDVs, and accused the mail agency of fudging the math of its environmental studies to justify such a large purchase of internal combustion engine trucks.".

    • by fafalone ( 633739 ) on Friday February 25, 2022 @06:20AM (#62302111)
      That's funny, because DeJoy has completely trashed service quality, deliberately increasing planned delivery times and on top of that on time delivery rates plummeted (though rebounded as 'on time' was redefined.

      This is a guy who thinks the PO's mission is decline in service and increase in price until he's successfully starved the beast and Congress moves to privatize all mail delivery. So what makes sense? This fucking disgrace of a Post Master General making yet another shitty decision, then complaining he wasted so much time making said shitty decision it's now too late to make a far better one?

      He's a classic Republican, the government can't do anything right, and by god he'll sabotage it as much as it takes to prove that, while he's well positioned to profit immensely off of competing private services (no, he hasn't even remotely divested from all conflicts).
      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Orgasmatron ( 8103 )

        Just out of curiosity, do you understand the history leading up to this? The shitty decisions that Congress made regarding the postal service predate Trump by at least a decade. Logic suggests that these decisions must also predate the tenure of a Trump appointee. Or did I miss some big news about time travel technology?

        • by Smidge204 ( 605297 ) on Friday February 25, 2022 @09:16AM (#62302523) Journal

          Dejoy is just the freshest turd on the pile of shit that congress, especially Republicans, have been piling up outside USPS' doors.

          A big part of it seems to be because there is a lot of money to be made in privatizing the postal service. Part of it is likely because the USPS is a great example of how a government run operation can be efficient, cost-effective, and popular... which runs counter to conservative's talking points that the government can do no right.

          Dejoy specifically was installed to help cripple the USPS just in time to stymie mail-in voting, because Republicans have an even longer tradition of hindering certain demographics the ability to vote. One of the first things Dejoy did was dismantle a whole bunch of brand new sorting equipment which caused massive backlogs and delays just as mail-in ballots were being sent to voters...

          The correct solution is to get Congress out of the picture and let the USPS operate as the constitutionally mandated service it's supposed to be.
          =Smidge=

      • One thing to remember, Louis had a fair chunk of change, and friends, in USPS competitors. That's on top of other revenue streams from competitors that his family receives. Oh and even though he "divested" from the competitors personally, make no mistake about him getting paid off in the end to f**k up USPS.

        The truck thing is money. Right now the custom Ford Transit van works out to about US$35k per vehicle. That's actually not bad at all, a pretty sensible deal, but American stop/start systems are farki
  • Let's hope lots of cities will introduce inner city zones where these stinkers are not allowed in.

  • Interesting choice. Is it CNG or LPG?
  • Huh, never heard of them and am slightly annoyed that Oshkosh Defense shares a name / location with Oshkosh B'Gosh, those coveralls I wore as a little kid.

    Apparently they just announced a month ago a hybrid joint light tactical vehicle for the military.. they use Ford parts and some or all can be retrofitted for electric one day if more money falls on them. Not an expert but since Google says that with their funding crisis they were 9bn in the red in 2020 and 5bn in the red in 2021, 10bn will be just right

  • Quotes from TFA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@[ ]oo.com ['yah' in gap]> on Friday February 25, 2022 @06:35AM (#62302149) Homepage Journal


    However, the Postal Service announced its agreement to purchase the trucks in February 2021 before it started an environmental analysis, and paid $482 million to Oshkosh to begin building manufacturing facilities before the study was completed.

    “When it came out,” said Adrian Martinez, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, “we realized they were either looking at the wrong things or they were totally misinformed. And whether that was intentional or not, it’s hugely problematic.”

    In short, this has nothing to do with whether electric or ICE is better, that was never looked into prior to the purchase. Indeed NOTHING was looked into prior to the purchase. This smacks of CEOs making decisions based on what they were told over a game of golf, the usual method of making stupid decisions.

    So forget all your fancy arguments over electric, ICE, or any other technology, and focus on the one thing that matters. They made the decision first and THEN looked for data that would justify it.

    Yes, politicians do that all the time. And it should be made a Federal offence for any civil servant or member of government to do so if it isn't already. This is NOT an acceptable way to make decisions with taxpayer money. Grifting should be taken out of all parts of government and kept out. Regardless of by who, regardless of why, and regardless of how good the round of golf turned out to be. This is NOT good governance.

    This needs to be studied by the GAO. If the GAO declares that the USPO acted in bad faith and mis-spent money, then the entire of the upper management needs to be sacked with no golden parachutes. If, on the other hand, the GAO finds that the EPA has acted in bad faith, then it should get its upper management replaced the same way.

    The consequences of a bad decision should be felt, not just as a slap on the wrist but as something major that they cannot ignore and pass off as politics as usual. Regardless of who it was that made the bad decision.

    And if the decision was right for the wrong reasons? Then the person making it should face a summons by Congress to explain why a bad faith decision should be tolerated by anyone, and booted out of whichever of the two organizations it turns out to be.

    This is called accountability. It's a novel concept for some people, I know. It's certainly novel in politics. But it is how you ACTUALLY drain a swamp, as opposed to talk a good talk but choose to walk towards an even deeper swamp, the way Trump and his supporters did.

    Get the GAO to establish three things:- what did the head of the USPS know, when did they know it, and was their action justified based on that knowledge. The usual stuff.

    • So forget all your fancy arguments over electric, ICE, or any other technology, and focus on the one thing that matters.

      The one thing that matters is the biosphere we all depend upon for life support, and that fossil fuels are hastening its demise and thus ours. Mail delivery is stop and go, so by definition it is literally the worst case for an ICEV.

      Get the GAO to establish three things:- what did the head of the USPS know

      He knows his mission is to destroy the USPS.

    • A swampy motherf*@ker gotta swamp.
  • But DeJoy, a holdover from the Trump administration

    Relevance: zero.

    If he's a political appointee, then Biden could have replaced him, in you know, the last two years ...

    (I personally blame Emmanuel Goldstein [wikipedia.org]).

  • The fast moving EV companies offer 20 year leases with support contracts? There EV stock owners would see that a liability at any competitive price level with G/D/CNG/E85 ICE solitons.
  • DeJoy? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by garry_g ( 106621 ) on Friday February 25, 2022 @07:44AM (#62302271)

    Not really surprised ...
    Except: How is it that DeChaos is still in office??? He's maliciously tried sabotaging both the election AND successfully crippled the USPS efficiency ...

  • by necro81 ( 917438 ) on Friday February 25, 2022 @07:56AM (#62302291) Journal
    I predict that in 10 years the USPS will still be struggling financially. The cost of operating their (still gas-powered) fleet will be higher than other (now mainly battery-powered) corporate delivery fleets, such as those run by UPS, FedEx, and Amazon. And on top of it, folks in Congress will still continue to criticize the USPS for their inefficiency and obsolescence, and crow about why-oh-why are they still burning gasoline when their "competitors" are using cheaper BEVs?

    The short-sightedness of this decision is indefensible and utterly galling to me, as a USPS customer, as a taxpayer, and as a environmentally-concerned member of the human race.
    • USPS will still be struggling because they will still be required to pre-fund pensions. This decision will likely exacerbate the problem. But it wont' be their biggest challenge. Part of the reason behind this decision is likely lower acquisition costs which are needed in order to free up cash to pre-fund the pensions.
  • by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Friday February 25, 2022 @08:08AM (#62302307)
    We've had electric vehicles longer than ICEs. There have been fleets of electric delivery vehicles since the 1800s, e.g. 'milk floats' in Ireland & the UK. The advantages have been clear & obvious for a very long time. It takes willful ignorance to use ICEs instead of electric motors in delivery vehicles.
  • Somebody should get fired and that decision should be reviewed. Sure, gasoline makes sense for rural vehicles, but urban vehicles being electric is an obvious best choice.
  • While urban USPS delivery getting electrified fleet is a no-brainier, I am not convinced that the same is feasible for rural mail service fleet. TFA says 10% of the fleet is electric, does this correspond to urban deliveries. Keep in mind, you need less vehicles to cover dense urban environments.
  • Given the chance, my postal worker would totally roll coal to retaliate for all of the free weights, litter, and heavy bags of dog food I've ordered during the pandemic.

  • Maybe Biden should threaten them with tech sanctions. It worked so well at keeping Russia out of Ukraine...

FORTH IF HONK THEN

Working...