We love one good postal truck around here, and obviously long delayed, strangely designed According to the mailmen who use them every day, electric postal trucks are actually very good.
The old Grumman Long Life Vehicles have actually lived a long time. Those trucks entered service in 1987, making them old millennials. And as an old millennial myself, I can tell you that none of them run as well as they used to. For example, the older Grumman LLVs, now have to endure recurring fires. They are only used for 25 years and are long past replacement age.
Not only is there safety that the new duckbill trucks bring, but there is also comfort for the mailmen, because Press Links report:
Even tall couriers can stand up without hitting their heads and walk from front to back to pick up their deliveries. For safety, the vehicle has airbags, a 360-degree camera, blind-spot monitoring, collision sensors, and anti-lock brakes—all of which are absent on Grummans.
The new trucks also have a feature that has been common in most cars for more than six decades: air conditioning. And that’s key for drivers in the Deep South, the desert Southwest and other areas with hot summers.
“I assure you it felt like heaven was blowing in my face,” Stonum said of her first experience working on an air-conditioned truck.
Richard Burton, another driver, said he appreciated the larger loading area, which can accommodate larger loads, and the fact that he doesn’t have to bend over, which helps avoid back pain. Older trucks also have a habit of breaking down on the road, he added.
Brian Renfroe, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, said union members were excited about the new vehicles, just as Grummans were about the leaps and bounds over the old Jeeps. He credited DeJoy with bringing a sense of urgency to getting them into production.
“We’re excited to see them start hitting the streets,” Renfroe said.
However, the entire fleet is not electric and new vehicles Gasoline powered trucks have very poor fuel economy. In fact, by April 2022, 90 percent of new trucks will be internal combustion engines. The postal service initially announced it would buy at least 25,000 electric vehicles as part of an initial order of 50,000 new delivery vehicles from Oshkosh—up from about 10,000. But Oshkosh The deal calls for 165,000 new mail delivery vans, or NGDVs, over a ten-year period. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told the AP that the fleet currently includes 45,000 EV vans.
It took more than a dozen states and environmental groups suing the Postal Service to increase the number of electric vehicles in its fleet. But thanks to electric vehicles, the Postal Service predicts it could cut its carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030.
