The United States Postal Service commits $9.6 billion for the next five years to achieve its target of electrifying its fleet of mail delivery trucks, as per Teslarati.
“Finally we’re seeing the common-sense decision to move the government’s largest fleet of vehicles to all-electric, a massive win for climate and public health. Instead of receiving pollution with their daily mail packages, communities across the US will get the relief of cleaner air.”
Director of the Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All campaign, Katherine García
Target
The USPS aims to electrify 75% of its newly developed Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDV). In addition, the Postal Service pledged to stop purchasing any further gas-powered mail trucks after 2026 and only purchase NGDVs that is entirely electric.
How could US Postal Service achieve this?
The USPS plans to acquire 45,000 tailored NGDVs from Oshkosh Defense for mail delivery in the following five years. Notably, this significantly differs from the USPS’s disclosed goals in July. At that time, it intended to boost the proportion of BEVs in its fleet to at least 50% of the 165,000 vehicles it would be acquiring as part of its fleet modernization project. In the past, it was 20%.
The USPS has invested $6.6 billion in addition to the $3 billion from the IRA, making a total commitment of $9.6 billion. By 2028, this amount will fund the purchase of 66,000 brand-new electric delivery vehicles and “tens of thousands” of EV charging points.
“The $3 billion provided by Congress has significantly reduced the risk associated with accelerating the implementation of a nationwide infrastructure necessary to electrify our delivery fleet.”
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy
Such government initiatives are essential to promoting the switch to electric vehicles. That said, global net-zero emission targets would be progressively attained if nations continue to move forward at this rate.
