Why the new USPS mail trucks look so weird

https://www.thedrive.com/news/39427/heres-why-the-new-usps-mail-trucks-look-so-weird

by minding • 5 years ago

265 375 5 years ago

tpmx3• 5 years ago

No mention of increased crumple zone, which was probably the entire reason for the redesign in the first place? Sheesh. I assume the article was written entirely based on a press release together with a nice pack of product photos.

The previous models were injury/death traps.

throwaway0a5e4• 5 years ago

These vehicles rarely make it above 40mph and the drivers often don't use seat belts.

Spending an extra hundred bucks per vehicle for a nice N-way adjustable seat or spending engineering hours making the seat-belts more convenient will have far greater benefits than throwing random safety technologies at it.

The previous models were designed in the 1980s. All 1980s work vehicles are/were death traps by modern clipboard warrior standards.

tpmx3• 5 years ago

These vehicles rarely make it above 40mph

That speed is quite deadly with zero crumple zone.

cma• 5 years ago

These vehicles rarely make it above 40mph and the drivers often don't use seat belts.

A crumple zone is going to still help in that case (40mph head on with another car at 40mph is significant, crumple zones in both vehicles would help both occupants).

jojobas• 5 years ago

Was wondering why not cab-over-engine, I guess this is the answer.

kelnos6• 5 years ago

Also wouldn't that raise the height of the driver's seat? Would make it harder to reach standard-height mailboxes from the driver's window.

thrower123• 5 years ago

The previous models were injury/death traps

Particularly since they routinely swing in and out of the roadway without looking or even using their directional signals.

It's best to treat a mail truck on a roadway as a being of pure chaos, utterly unpredictable and capricious, if not always actively malicious.

uptown• 5 years ago

"No mention of increased crumple zone"

Can't they just write "DO NOT BEND" in sharpie on the side?

teruakohatu2• 5 years ago

"Oddly-shaped mail trucks seem to be a staple of Americana."

As a non-American I have always found this amusing.

Here in New Zealand Post was until a few years ago delivered by bicycle in cities (SUVs or vans in rural areas). They have since moved towards small electric vehicles called Paxster. Basically large four wheel scooters that can ride on both the road and pavement.

https://jobs.nzpost.co.nz/paxster

pplante• 5 years ago

Based on those vehicles I am guessing NZPost doesn't handle the amount of junk mail and Amazon packages that USPS has to shuffle around.

teruakohatu2• 5 years ago

They deliver mail and small packets only. Parcels are delivered in vans.

But no, the NZPost business model (or lack thereof) does not depend on junk mail. Mail is ridiculously expensive, ~50%+ more expensive than the USA, so addressed junk mail is relatively rare, maybe one item per month.

robocat2• 5 years ago

Packages in NZ are mostly delivered by small owner-operated vans like: https://www.google.com/search?q=courier+van+site:nz&tbm=isch

xxpor3• 5 years ago

In cities in the US, it's similar. They have full size vans that aren't particularly custom for routes where the delivery person gets out and walks to the mailboxes. These new vehicles, and the ones they replace, are largely for suburban/rural deliveries where they drive right up to the mailbox, and so need a right hand drive vehicle.

cyberpunk• 5 years ago

Here in Germany DHL and the like use ebikes for the letter / small packet post daily, and the bigger stuff just gets dropped off by a van... seems to work...

bigiain• 5 years ago

In Australia the Honda CT90->CT110->NBC110 "Postie Bike" was, up until 2015 or so, the best selling motorcycle for decades, so much so that it almost always got left out of motorcycle market share reporting.

Australia Post used to buy ~2000 of them a year, but recently have replaced most of the motorcycles with bicycles and electric bicycles (and the volume of ordinary letters that are suitable for motorcycle/bicycle/walking delivery has also plummeted, these days an enormous (literal) volume of mail is parcels from China/Amazon, which don't fit as neatly/efficiently in a motorcycle pannier an are mostly delivered by contractors in generic white vans.

"In terms of actual numbers, a major contributor to the fall has been the Australia Post ‘postie bike’ fleet. After artificially inflating new bike sales figures for years, sales of the postie bike (formerly CT110, now NBC110) fell 43 per cent in 2017 and a further 52 per cent last year. Australia’s top-selling ‘road bike’ for years, the NBC110 only scraped into the road category’s Top Ten last year and didn’t even figure in the overall Top Ten." -- https://www.justbikes.com.au/news-and-reviews/2018-australia...

and:

"For years, the CT110 was Australia’s top-selling motorcycle, but almost the entirety of those sales went to Australia Post. With the decline in letter delivery and Australia Post’s move to electric trikes better suited to parcel delivery, CT 110 / NBC 110 sales have fallen rapidly in recent years, including a 52 per cent drop in 2018 alone. The NBC 110 didn’t even appear in the ‘Top 10’ listings provided by the FCAI, suggesting less than 500 units were sold last year. That compares to 1,447 sales just two years ago." -- https://www.justbikes.com.au/news-and-reviews/motorcycle-sal...

Danieru• 5 years ago

Japan Post is still using Honda SuperCub. Maybe Honda will release an electric version they can upgrade to.

Nition• 5 years ago

I'm also in New Zealand. What I found really interesting about this article was that apparently US mailboxes are positioned right by the road so that the mail carrier can directly drop the mail in from a vehicle. Clever! Although it must make it more likely to get your mailbox knocked over by a car.

Here the mailbox is usually on the other side of a grass verge and footpath (sidewalk), too far to reach from the road.

twic2• 5 years ago

See also school buses. In the UK we just use normal coaches.

throwaway0a5e4• 5 years ago

TL;DR because you haven't seen a vehicle optimized for this purpose in 30yr (i.e. since the LLV) and you're not used to seeing this particular instance of it yet.

legohead• 5 years ago

If you are curious about the fuel like me -- 10% of the new vehicles will be electric [1].

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/25/22300281/usps-new-mail-tr...

foateaca• 5 years ago

Awesome that it is designed to be electric conversion-friendly. I'd call this a win for functional design constraints because it looks very practical, in a good way. Needs: safety and efficiency.

Robotbeat17• 5 years ago

Too bad it’s not higher. But that’s a good start. It’s a clear win for a well-engineered electric drivetrain given the low miles typically traveled per day (BUT high total miles on odometers as they’re made to last decades), typically low speeds, and extensive stop and start. Playing almost entirely to electric’s strengths and the weaknesses of internal combustion. In an ideal world, I’d hope it’d be 50% electric and 50% plug-in hybrid.

jerf4• 5 years ago

I can't imagine more than a handful of post offices are ready to plug in all of their trucks right now. They're almost all going to need power upgrades.

diggan4• 5 years ago

Why have a specific design anyways? In both Sweden and Spain, the cars carrying mail is typically just a normal half-truck (not sure about the correct name) with the post office branding. Here are two examples: https://c8.alamy.com/comp/DA5TW8/yellow-correos-spanish-post... - https://st2.depositphotos.com/3982569/5739/i/950/depositphot...

Seems to work fine. Packages gets carried in bigger trucks, but still just business trucks with different branding on them. Wouldn't it have saved a lot of cost in the end?

namdnay• 5 years ago

The name is a van or “panel van”

meepmorp2• 5 years ago

US mail trucks have the driver on the right hand side (as opposed to the left), so that they can deliver mail without having to get out of the driver's seat. Which naturally means we can't just reuse trucks made for the UK or other Commonwealth markets because... China or socialism or whatever.

lisper• 5 years ago

TFA actually explains all this pretty well:

"The requirements dictated the step-in height, the glass height (including the low side glass), the vision angles, the internal height, and the maximum roof height," wrote Kahn in a tweet. "That was all locked in."

Other constraints included the ability to reach the mailbox while in the seated position, and the requirement to see the ground around the vehicle...

tpmx3• 5 years ago

"Opposite-driven" postal vehicles have been common/standard in Europe for a very long time. It's not a complex thing to change, especially since many car models are made to be sold in e.g. the UK anyways.

imwillofficial3• 5 years ago

“ China or socialism or whatever.”? What do you mean?

jcrawfordor2• 5 years ago

While USPS is not subject to "Buy America" requirements, like most quasi-governmental organizations it does have an acquisition policy of purchasing vehicles from US manufacturers rather than overseas when possible. This aligns with the general US system of preferential government purchasing, in which federal purchasing decisions are based partially on policy objectives such as promoting small businesses and US manufacturing. There could be some debate over this policy position, but at its core it could be viewed as a very light extension of New Deal principles---that the federal government should put its money where its mouth is by patronizing the types of US businesses that are the subject of so much political rhetoric.

To my knowledge, there are no right-hand-drive vehicles manufactured in the US, as RHD is limited to countries closer to extensive auto manufacturing in Europe and Asia. As a stopgap measure, the Postal Service has been making use of domestic minivans converted to RHD using a belt arrangement that does not look particularly user friendly. The driver has to lean over to see the dashboard instruments.

BadInformatics3• 5 years ago

Same with Canada Post AIUI. How often does the right-hand driver's seat thing come into play? Seems like the procurement for this kind of custom vehicle couldn't/won't be cheap.

xxpor3• 5 years ago

I'd wager ~75% of mailboxes are delivered to with a RHD vehicle. So it matters a lot.

TylerE10• 5 years ago

RHD is pretty common. That's how all vehicles sold in the UK, Japan, and Australia (and some other places) are sold.

There there are conversion kits for common rural postal vehicles (jeeps)

maxerickson5• 5 years ago

For 165,000 vehicles that will be used for a long time, it probably doesn't matter a great deal.

I don't mean that it doesn't matter at all, the procurement process needs to make sense and not be a path for graft, but there's reasonable volume there to spread fixed costs across.

msbarnett• 5 years ago

A friend of mine delivered for Canada Post.

A few years ago, exiting the vehicle on the left side to come around to the curb, he was struck by a car in a hit and run (they never caught the driver). Spent 6 months in hospital learning to walk again, and while he’s since somewhat recovered, he’s going to spend the rest of his life living in significant pain.

Not having to exit into the road, when the job involves people exiting the vehicles hundreds of thousands of times per year, matters a lot for the long-term safety of the delivery force.

marcinzm• 5 years ago

The same reason Amazon runs its own shipping network instead of relying on UPS or Fedex. At a certain scale it is cheaper to get a custom option that specifically fits your needs rather than retro-fitting something else. The USPS bought 100,000 of the last truck and, for example, one of the requirements was long service life. Building a truck you can use for 30 years is probably much cheaper than buying multiple lower service life trucks over that period.

chrisseaton2• 5 years ago

The same reason Amazon runs its own shipping network instead of relying on UPS or Fedex.

Amazon use off-the-shelf vehicles though.

one of the requirements was long service life

I wonder how they require that. Does the manufacturer have to warranty them all for 30 years? That's extraordinary!

fingerlocks5• 5 years ago

The United States is a vast, sprawling area with nearly every conceivable type of geography. The road conditions and residential density covers all possible ranges. The truck is designed for the worst case scenario allowable while minimizing drivers danger.

Also, the USPS uses panel vans in denser areas. My neighborhood in Seattle has the mail delivered in a Sprinter/ProMaster/Transit thing, but weird trucks are ubiquitous elsewhere.

whomst• 5 years ago

The USPS also uses Jeeps in the sticks, but those aren't common enough to be seen by most people.

diggan4• 5 years ago

The United States is a vast, sprawling area with nearly every conceivable type of geography. The road conditions and residential density covers all possible ranges. The truck is designed for the worst case scenario allowable while minimizing drivers danger.

I'm pretty sure most of the geography in the US can be found in either Spain or Sweden as well. Except jungle I guess, but don't think you have much of that over there either. Besides the point anyway.

Yeah, the cars here do drive through a lot of different geographies as well. In the denser areas like cities, the postal workers are most often on motobikes or just walking though, depending on the density of the city.

tduberne• 5 years ago

One requirement seems to be that the driver can access the mailbox without leaving the vehicle. So the equivalent in Europe would be the bikes (or, nowadays, electric scooters) that are used to deliver mail. They are typically specifically designed for the postal service.

So it might be less different than it seems at first.

sorenjan• 5 years ago

Same thing with the Swedish cars. That's why they're right hand drive unlike other cars.

https://cdn.arbetet.se/app/uploads/2016/04/09235113/01-Brevb...

jonah• 5 years ago

Where I grew up, the rural mail carriers drove their own vehicles. Ours drove his (Subaru wagon I think) from the middle of the bench seat - gas and brake with the left foot.

Some others in the area imported RHD vehicles.

twic2• 5 years ago

I believe that this is the only correct response to this question.

In the UK, we have letterboxes in our front doors. Nobody can drive up to them (mine is up two flights of steps!). So, last-yard post delivery is done on foot, and vehicles are used to deliver the postmen (and in urban areas, postmen will travel from the delivery office by foot or bicycle). The vehicles can thus be normal vans.

In the US, they have mailboxes on posts by the kerb. Postmen can drive right up to them to deliver the post. There, it makes sense to have specialist vehicles.

I suspect Sweden and Spain are like the UK, and not the US, in this respect.

marshmallow_123• 5 years ago

in uk all the services drive boring old Transits or whatever. At least Royal Mail have some respect for their Postman Pat legacy and paint their vans red. But there is one outstanding exception: UPS. I don't even see so many of them around, so i'm not pure why it's economical for them and why only they use custom vans, but i respect them for that.

kbenson• 5 years ago

Possibly because as a global company, it's easier for them to have shared vehicles and parts across their entire service area (most the world). They can probably just fly the vans/trucks and parts in wherever they are needed, since they run their own fleet of (very large) planes as well.

kevin_thibedeau• 5 years ago

Rural USPS mail carriers will sometimes use right hand drive SUVs and minivans. There is also a bigger "ice cream truck" for packages.

andoriyu2• 5 years ago

Scale, USPS deliver far more mail than others. USPS had pretty specific requirements and not a single existing truck existed or could pass an endurance test.

Good video on subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE5FGyq12ds

gregoriol• 5 years ago

While using a regular truck is likely much more cost effective than having a specific one (less investment, easier repairs, ...), each design may be optimal for some situations: some trucks have the size to load pallets, some are equipped to load big/heavy stuff, ...

Most regular vehicles are not optimised for many/small/various packages and are not optimised for high frequency in/out and searching/unloading as mail trucks would need. You'll easily see how the package/postal delivery drivers loose time searching the packages through the back and energy bending, opening/closing doors when they use such regular trucks.

One of the great things here is how they seem to look for best posture and efficiency for the driver: it's not only about speed of delivery, but likely to also prevent accidents during the trip, injuries from the work, ...

Mauricebranagh2• 5 years ago

Time and motion to maximise the efficiency of the postie its why the old trucks sit the driver on the near side.

xeromal3• 5 years ago

Another point is now once your train the entire work force in a specific vehicle, you can trust most everyone employed knows how to use the one vehicle you use. Easy to rotate and repair vehicles when they're all the same.

perl4ever2• 5 years ago

I think I remember seeing the vehicle delivering mail at my old apartment building and it wasn't a grumman whatsit but a regular van or delivery truck. So I don't think the special vehicles are universal in the US either. I also think I've seen postal jeeps although that may have been a long time ago.

RickS• 5 years ago

WOW those are cool. I'm excited to see the inevitable #vanlife conversions once civilians start getting their hands on them.

exabrial2• 5 years ago

I'm always in disbelief at the sheer volume of waste they deliver. I maybe get one meaningful or useful piece of paper a month, the rest is hundreds of pounds of paper, hauled by thousands of gallons of diesel fuel. How this organisation continues to exist in is current form is mind blowing. Nearly everything it hauls could be emailed.

And don't forget the cost to have trash trucks haul the thousands of pounds of waste away, also diesel powered.

chrisbennet• 5 years ago

It's the original "ad supported" business.

dragonwriter• 5 years ago

It's the original "ad supported" business.

No, it's not. Ad-supported newspapers are older than postal mail being largely advertising subsidizing other mail. Older than the US Post Office (and the US, even in North America), too.

kelnos6• 5 years ago

I disagree that the USPS shouldn't exist in its current form, but I am always dismayed at the quantity of mail I immediately chuck in the recycling bin (easily 95% or greater). I bet if USPS raised their bulk mail pricing, we'd have a lot less junk.

exabrial2• 5 years ago

that in fact, is exactly what I'm talking about

tomerico• 5 years ago

They publish their revenue and expenses numbers [1]. The marketing mail junk revenues are around $150 per household, and equals to two pieces per day per household.

So it’s a lot of junk as you said, but it’s also a lot of money. I’d wager that less than 10% would pay that $150 annual fee for an “ads-free” model.

[1] https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2020/1113-...

kylewatson• 5 years ago

I want one to be my next vanlife rv. Seems the ergonomics are ideal.

dry_soup• 5 years ago

I really like the look. In a few years everyone will forget about it being "weird".

kelnos6• 5 years ago

Agreed! I don't know why everyone seems to think they look weird. They certainly look different, but I really like how they look.

userbinator• 5 years ago

It's weird because the front end looks like a typical sedan but everything from the windshield back looks like a box truck/van.

logicchop• 5 years ago

I agree. I think it looks neat.

imwillofficial3• 5 years ago

I think they look kinda cool

amyjess• 5 years ago

TBH I'd entirely support the NHTSA making the new mail truck's low hood height mandatory on all new vehicles. It would make being hit by an SUV have a far, far safer outcome.

lemoncucumber• 5 years ago

“Over the past decade, automotive safety regulators in Europe have made pedestrian safety a priority. But their American counterparts have not adopted the same rules to protect people outside of vehicles. As pedestrian deaths rise alarmingly fast in the U.S., with nearly 6,000 lives lost last year, the difference between the American and European approaches to the regulation of car design stands out strongly.”

Source: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/12/07/while-other-countries...

TylerE10• 5 years ago

Ironically pedestrian safety standards have generally raised hoods. The idea being that’s it better to not fling them up and over like a shovel

daveslash• 5 years ago

I had never seen a USPS vehicle until I was a legal adult and moved to college. I grew up in a very rural part of New England, America - on a dirt road. Winter had plenty of snow and plowing wasn't a guarantee at all. Considering the USPS Creed "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" -- Snow is the first one! Our "mail lady"** drove a Jeep Wrangler with the steering on the right instead of the left, and the passenger seat removed to make room for mail.

**She was known as "the mail lady" because our town only had 1 mail carrier. I realize that term wouldn't fly today, but this was rural America 30 years ago and I wanted to give context. Same mail carrier for 20+ years. Worked 6 days a week. Her name was Linda - Bless her for her hard work.

thepasswordis• 5 years ago

Okay I'm genuinely curious why "mail lady" wouldn't fly today.

...why not?

patrickyeon• 5 years ago

Gendered terms are becoming less popular to describe people in situations where their gender doesn't matter. So we might say "mail person" or "mail carrier", the same as we say "firefighter" instead of "fireman".

It's not "cancel culture" as the sibling comment suggests; it's rarely people being outraged about imagined attacks. It's just language evolving as society evolves. As an added bonus, sticking with non-gendered terms means you don't accidentally insult someone by assuming something based on their body type or haircut, and it leaves space for non-binary or non-conforming people to not be accidentally made to feel unwelcome.

drewzero1• 5 years ago

Probably just because of the gendered noun? "Mailman" and "mail lady" having been replaced in general use by the non-gendered "mail carrier" or "postal worker."

incanus77• 5 years ago

Same for me — rural town 30 years ago. A classmate's mom was the mail carrier for the whole town and used a station wagon similarly fitted (RHD, sign on the back).

jccalhoun• 5 years ago

I grew up in a rural area too and the mail carrier drove their own vehicles. In fact, when I was a kid my parents bought a stick shift from someone and the person said they were selling it because they got a job as a mail carrier and needed an automatic.

Mountain_Skies4• 5 years ago

For what it's worth, that's never been USPS's motto or policy. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/87770/neither-snow-nor-r...

tanjtanjtanj• 5 years ago

I have official USPS "merch" adorned with that motto and the USPS mail trucks in a rural Colorado town I often visit have a portion of it written on the sides. It may not be their official policy or motto (likely for legal reasons) but it is officially associated with the service in some capacity.

RegBarclay• 5 years ago

This is still how it is in rural areas. We have a mail lady. I've seen multiple vehicles -- some of them Jeeps. We don't get the LLVs out our way.

On the USPS Creed, I was a paperboy when I was a teen and always chuckled at that. I never got Sundays off. I don't think I ever had a snow day, but there were days the US mail didn't run due to weather.

legitster• 5 years ago

I'm reminded of the quote: "A camel is a horse designed by committee."

kelnos6• 5 years ago

Isn't that kinda the opposite of the issue here? The people doing the designing were given strict requirements for heights and clearances; there aren't many designs that would have fit those requirements.

pengaru2• 5 years ago

This vehicle would be so much more adorable if they'd given it a more face-like front end, like an NA Miata, or anything more fitting to the Cars movie franchise.

Evidlo2• 5 years ago

We could create a cute USPS mascot and make it a job requirement to wear the costume. Japan has tons of them.

https://cdn.motor1.com/images/mgl/Y9p1j/s4/mitsubishi-minica...

I propose this eagle:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61M%2BFV3aD...

pengaru2• 5 years ago

I laughed, but I think the postal workers already put up with enough shit. No need to make them wear uncomfortable costumes.

It just seemed like a missed opportunity to make lemonade from these design constraints. Though maybe it'd be a safety issue to make the mail delivery vehicle excite the kiddos as much as my little old red miata does because it resembles Lightning McQueen.

kumarvvr2• 5 years ago

Why are looks so important anyways?

Clearly USPS is trying to look after its employees, trying to ensure they have the best vehicle, suited for their work with minimal hassle.

dangerbird23• 5 years ago

Better for all of us. The new vehicle clearly has really good visibility with the giant windshield, meaning we’re much less likely to get run over by Newman

kumarvvr2• 5 years ago

I always feel sad that Wayne Knight did not get more screen time.

Jerry did not use his talents to the fullest extent.

I really wish there was a spin-off with only Newman & Kramer.

Kramen.

Groxx• 5 years ago

That's a stupendously low step-in height. Probably makes a huge impact in reducing RSI and other repeated-motion injuries.

More weirdness please. Looks great to me.

specialist• 5 years ago

Ya, this new design isn't nearly 'weird" enough.

Why have a nose at all?

Put driver's seat over the front wheels. Like the VW Vanagon (Eurovans). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Type_2_(T3)

These are gonna be EVs, right? Might as well do it right.

Larrikin3• 5 years ago

HN is usually pretty utilitarian, I'm sure there are a lot of people on here that admire Mark Zuckerburgs "style" and seek to emulate it by not caring at all about how they dress and simply optimizing for clothes that will last the longest.

But there are also people out there who are influenced by wanting to look in a way they perceive as nice or cool and still have a satisfying life. I appreciate the tech culture that helped eliminate the suit but mostly because I like the way I dress and it's a form of expression for me. Plus it's nice regularly getting comments for putting in a little effort without having to resort to business casual. I know specifically my younger cousins admire that I can do a programming job and still wear (and are able to afford) clothes they'd want to wear.

Perhaps if the USPS trucks weren't the ugliest design that satisfied specs and instead seemed like some cutting edge vehicle there might be people out there who are growing up that would actually find it kind of fun or cool to drive around a USPS truck. It might be nice for it to be a job people want to do versus it being a secure job where you're the joke for driving around the ugliest vehicle on the road while dodging people's dogs.

As a simple example that well design can still be top quality, look at any of the trains on the Tokyo subway and train systems versus any train system in the US. They're far better functionally than any of the trains in New York or Chicago and look alot better inside and out as well. Maybe it looking impressive and not a tin can on wheels contributes to the increase in ridership for all groups of people, maybe that makes the job to be a conductor highly competitive to the point of it being a college degree worthy job. There are other things the train system does well but you still want to not hate riding on the vehicle.

An even simpler to understand example is the early days of android vs iPhone. Android was simply uglier but wasn't that different functionally. It was just extremely ugly to the point of people not wanting to buy it if they could afford to otherwise, so much so that Google invested a ton of money in creating Material Design

ironmagma• 5 years ago

What looks ‘ugly’ today could very well look great in five years. The Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco debuted to reception as an eyesore, but now it’s one of the main icons if the city. Weird is almost always good in my opinion. If it looks weird, that indicates it challenges assumptions and pushes the envelope forward.

ping_pong2• 5 years ago

If they looked too good, the sad fact is that they might be targeted for being stolen.

kube-system10• 5 years ago

Eh, I'm not sure about that. People don't steal cars because they look good. And the people who do, probably don't think box trucks are that attractive. Stolen vehicles are usually crimes of opportunity.

Larrikin3• 5 years ago

People would not steal nice looking federal government vehicles for similar reasons as they didn't steal wasteful spending on those Dodge Charger police cars. You're committing a crime where the government has the maximum amount of incentive to hunt you down and charge with the most number of crimes.

Stealing a regular person's car and crashing it isn't of much concern if you don't kill anyone.

skynetv2• 5 years ago

This article basically is - "The USPS trucks look that way because USPS design says they have to". It would have helped to explain why USPS has these specific requirements - safety, comfort and efficiency.

abnercoimbre• 5 years ago

Are those the actual specific requirements? Would love to read more on the subject but it's hard to find authoritative sources.

brod• 5 years ago

Most government tenders for a contract are available online, I'm from Australia so not entirely sure what I'm looking at but this[1] appears to be some sort of reference to the tender, although there is limited information provided.

[1] https://beta.sam.gov/opp/588f5ed4becd4fc4abf6df8e7a918184/vi...

Edit: This[2] seems to be a notice of the contract being awarded to Oshkosh for exactly $481,877,752.00 USD.

[2] https://beta.sam.gov/opp/1e56c386808444d886124fc1927f4eb0/vi...

analog313• 5 years ago

If I could specify exactly what I want a vehicle to do, and have it designed for me, it would look weird too:

1. All electric

2. Can transport a double bass

3. But no bigger than necessary

4. Meets decent safety requirements

boothby• 5 years ago

Real talk, my mom plays bass. We fit that, two adults, two kids, a pair of fiddles and backpacks for a weekend away: all into a Geo Metro. The trick is to put the neck down between the drivers with the rear seats folded down, and then fold them up. Wasn't terribly comfortable back there, but we were small enough to deal with it.

Oh. You edited your post to say "decent safety requirements". A '91 Metro probably doesn't fulfil that these days. But they'd probably do fine with an electric conversion.

analog313• 5 years ago

Indeed, I drive a small, old Toyota hatchback right now. Mostly I get around town by bike. My spouse and I would like our next car to be an electric if this one ever gives out, but my fear is that all cars seem to be getting bigger and bigger.

aidenn03• 5 years ago

My sister could fit a contrabasoon into a Toyota Matrix, but not anything much smaller; not sure if that would hold a bass.

soheil• 5 years ago

Because platypuses are bottom-feeders that use their beaver-like tail to steer and their webbed feet to propel themselves through the water while hunting for insects, shellfish, and worms

FractalHQ• 5 years ago

Idk that shit kinda goes hard

chrismartin• 5 years ago

Looks aside, air conditioning is a win for postal workers in hot climates. The Grumman LLV doesn't have it, and postal workers are required to keep the windows shut when they leave the vehicle, even in 115°F days in Phoenix.

hellbannedguy• 5 years ago

I imagine they will keep a few gas powered vehicles for very hot climates.

colineartheta3• 5 years ago

What? AC is unrelated to the energy source of the drivetrain.

slimsag• 5 years ago

I've lived in Phoenix for over a decade, where it regularly reaches 120F during the summer.

Not once have I ever seen a USPS vehicle other than the Grumman LLV, which has no AC, even during the summer months and at several different residences across the state.

elihu4• 5 years ago

Presumably the government gets a price discount for ordering in massive bulk. Any idea what the price per unit is for either the gas or electric version?

The press release kind of vaguely implies a price range:

https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2021/0223-...

Under the contract’s initial $482 million investment, Oshkosh Defense will finalize the production design of the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle (NGDV) — a purpose-built, right-hand-drive vehicle for mail and package delivery — and will assemble 50,000 to 165,000 of them over 10 years. The vehicles will be equipped with either fuel-efficient internal combustion engines or battery electric powertrains and can be retrofitted to keep pace with advances in electric vehicle technologies. The initial investment includes plant tooling and build-out for the U.S. manufacturing facility where final vehicle assembly will occur.
The contract is the first part of a multi-billion-dollar 10-year effort to replace the Postal Service’s delivery vehicle fleet, one of the world’s largest.

If "multi-billion-dollar" means about two billion and they make 50,000 vans, that's $40,000 per van. If they make 165,000 for 2 billion, that's about $12,100 per van. I guess that range sounds sort of reasonable.

Robotbeat17• 5 years ago

It's interesting that "cost" is the reason given for why these vehicles aren't electric, but... how could that be? Batteries for electric carmakers are not that expensive any more, maybe $150/kWh.

LLVs are currently horrendously inefficient (fleet average of about 9mpg). They have a ~13 gallon tank for a range of about 120 miles. They drive about 18 miles a day on average (total fleet average, so some are idle and probably the typical route is 45 miles, but 18 miles is good for our purposes) and burn 2 gallons of gas. At $3/gallon, that's about $6 a day in fuel costs (and let's ignore brakes and oil changes). We could put a 75kWh battery in that thing, easily get 250 mile range (double the range of what the LLV is). For an efficiency of about 3.33 miles per kWh, and an average commercial electricity price of 11 cents per kWh, that's 59 cents per day in electricity cost. So every day, the electric one would save $5.40 in fuel costs (net).

Even with that generous 75kWh battery, you're talking just 6 years for it to pay for the electric battery to pay for itself in fuel costs vs the old vehicle. And these things are designed to last for multiple decades, plus this will drastically reduce oil changes and brake servicing costs. Are they really that cash strapped they'll ignore something that can save them that much? The US federal government definitely isn't strapped for cash. Does this really boil down to punitive fiscal requirements for the USPS put on by Congress and DeJoy? Because if so, that's inexcusable.

Or perhaps no one bid a competitively low price for an electric powertrain?

s0rce2• 5 years ago

Maybe the charging infrastructure isn't available?

Robotbeat17• 5 years ago

A literal 120V exterior outlet? 83% of these vehicles drive in the city. They drive on average 18 miles a day (typical routes being about 45 miles). You don't need a 150kW Supercharger station, you just need a 1.2kW regular old 120V exterior outlet used for trimming the bushes. Even a cheap RV hookup would be overkill.

If a federal government agency in the most powerful national on the planet can't take the most obvious step toward electrification in a case which is the best possible situation for an electric vehicle (very stop and go traffic, slow speeds, short routes, long total miles on odometer over life of vehicle), what hope does the rest of the world have in taking action on climate?

Greta Thunberg is right. People don't care about climate. Literally everything else is a priority.

ratsforhorses• 5 years ago

Just putting this out there.."Adapting a lamp post into a charging point for electric vehicles can cost as little as £2,000" Seems like a good infrastructure project ...

m4632• 5 years ago

from the other linked article:

While some will be EVs, some of the NGDVs will come with modern, fuel-efficient internal combustion engines. As electric vehicle infrastructure improves, these NGDVs will be able to be retrofitted with the battery-electric powertrain later on.

Robotbeat17• 5 years ago

That doesn't make any sense. All the "electrical infrastructure" needed to drive the typical 45 mile route is a regular old 120V exterior outlet. The retrofit cost is going to probably be double the marginal cost it would've been to just make it electric in the first place.

Whoever is making these decisions either wasn't given competitive bids or they're poorly informed about electric vehicles.

fshbbdssbbgdd• 5 years ago

It seems like you are comparing a theoretical modern EV to the terrible efficiency of the old LLV. They didn’t choose to continue buying the old LLV, they are buying a vehicle with a new ICE. So the comparison makes little sense.

gibolt2• 5 years ago

Repair and maintenance are probably far more expensive than the gas costs, especially as a government contract. Gas prices will also increase as demand falls of a cliff over the coming decade.

Electric wins on all fronts in cost, simplicity, and city health

IncRnd2• 5 years ago

They drive about 18 miles a day on average

The LLVs don't drive for an hour a day and sit in the parking lot turned off for 23 hours a day. Many routes might be 6 hours or more. You need vehicles that have AC or heat and the ability to run for an entire day. The differential cost for such a vehicle is not the cost of a battery. I'm not saying the current purchasing process is waste-free, but you need to use realistic numbers.

The longest route is about 185 miles in Phillipsburg, KS. There are averages, medians, and modes, none of which are the right numbers. The average isn't as important as probable mileage.

For example, say a bus carries a maximum of 80 people. When 10 people get on your bus, your costs aren't 12%.

Johnny5554• 5 years ago

Carriers on many rural routes use their own vehicles. My parent's carrier drives a Subaru Outback

elihu4• 5 years ago

Even a 75kWh battery would be expensive and heavy, and probably overkill in this case. If 100 miles of range is more than enough for most routes for the day, then something like 30kWh might be more reasonable.

Also one might be able to keep costs down by optimizing for cost rather than energy density. LiFeP04 cells have been comparatively expensive, but it seems price has been dropping lately. It's also a good choice for safety and durability reasons, and because they don't use cobalt which is sort of expensive and sort of rare. Not using cobalt means avoiding a resource that would bottleneck other manufacturers of EVs.

It'd be interesting to know what the actual specs are on the EV version of the USPS vans (battery type, capacity, etc...) and see if my speculation corresponds to what they chose. I don't know if they've released that publicly yet.

A 30kWh battery could easily be 5 or 10 thousand dollars, which may well be worth it to save on gas for a long time; on the other hand, gas engines are well-understood and really cheap, because we have a huge established industry that builds engines by the millions and has been optimizing for cost for over a hundred years.

This sounds a lot like the "Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness" from Terry Pratchett that generally eventually gets quoted in this sorts of discussion.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/72745-the-reason-that-the-r...

jfoutz• 5 years ago

I think it’s more about timing. Rfp in 2015, the ev landscape was different, and not super clear battery technology would be where it is now.

cycomanic• 5 years ago

That's essentially what the German Post did. They developed their own all electric van the streetscooter. Unfortunately they could not turn it into a viable business and sell enough units to others, so they shuttered the operation last year. Quite unfortunate, because I believe the project was well ahead of its time.

moooo99• 5 years ago

iirc German Post didn't really develop the Streetscoter [1] themselves, instead they acquired the company that did. It was a start up lead by a professor from university Aachen and from what I can remember, they had quite a lot of problems besides the ones you mentioned. There were a lot of recalls and other problems, especially towards the end of the company [2]

The post employees also often complained about the relatively high loading edge for the storage box, which makes it super hard to load and unload heavy packages.

Regardless of the problems, I think it was a really good idea and a rather cool looking vehicle. And when it comes to urban streets in Germany, the street scooter probably was the perfect vehicle when it comes to space requirements.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StreetScooter [2] (German) https://www.businessinsider.de/gruenderszene/allgemein/stree... [3] (German) https://www.elektroauto-news.net/elektroautos/streetscooter-...

kwhitefoot• 5 years ago

Th Norwegian Post Office uses electric vehicles. I saw one in the street in Drammen this morning. See https://elbil.no/posten-elbil/

Gravityloss• 5 years ago

Local postal company started using Swiss electric tricycles, though slightly customized. I imagine they aren't cheap to buy, but maybe total cost of ownership is reasonable? Also I assume they can tolerate winters well compared to two wheeled vehicles, yet can navigate narrow spaces.

https://www.post.ch/en/about-us/responsibility/our-prioritie...

Adrig• 5 years ago

ITT people arguing that a country with $7 trillion of spending budget can't install a few power outlets in its post offices.

jerry1979• 5 years ago

I don't think that spending really goes to the post office tho.

INTPenis• 5 years ago

The US is massive and its grid of infrastructure can't always keep up. But you're right that cities should have electrical USPS vehicles. Dominoes here have electrical bikes in city locations, why can't the post office have electrical cars?

totalZero4• 5 years ago

It seems to me that a parcel-laden EV that starts and stops repeatedly will still be pretty lossy -- ie, the effective fuel efficiency will be quite low compared to typical EV city driving because regen doesn't work quite so well for precise stops. You're still going to engage the brake pads for a full stop in front of every mailbox.

Also, maintenance would probably be more expensive if you have to train people to work on the electric powertrain.

But presumably they could always modify the powertrain in a future iteration.

solarkraft2• 5 years ago

And somebody think about the extra load on the power grid!

It's not that these aren't valid concerns, they have to be addressed, they're just so minute they don't change the calculation even slightly.

EVs at that speed may lose a bit more (already more efficiently generated and used) power in regen - vs. a guaranteed 100% loss on a gas vehicle.

BCM43• 5 years ago

Aaron Gordon at Vice gives some explanations - most important cost-related bit seems to be they weight upfront cost a lot more than amortized cost, and non-electric does better on that front.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/3an4k8/dont-expect-the-usps-...

blaser-waffle• 5 years ago

Everyone hates OpEx, even Feddy'Gov.

a9h74j2• 5 years ago

Weight-per-wheel also figures into wear inflicted on local roads.

ffdhghggg• 5 years ago

People on HN are technical, so we're discussing technical reasons. However, that's not really how the government works.

USPS leadership had instructions to electrify the fleet. For whatever reason, they decided they didn't want to. Maybe they didn't want to deal with a risky change, maybe they thought it would hinder meeting their other obligations. Doesn't matter. They decided they didn't want to do it.

Their next step is then to write requirements in their rfp such that they can select a contractor that cannot meet the electric mandate. This allows them to legally pass the buck for the electric thing to their contractor, who will get paid big dollars to "develop" electric vehicles that their customer doesn't want.

Congress gets to brag about their environmental contributions, USPS gets the vehicles they want, and the contractor gets a sizable sum to do nothing. Win-win-win.

Mauricebranagh2• 5 years ago

I suspect they where afraid of push back from the previous administration as well.

I am surprised they didn't look at using LNG instead of petrol.

johnwalkr• 5 years ago

It’s too bad, a massive fleet built to spec, with central fueling and maintenance locations is a perfect use case for electric now even though we are potentially a long way from charging stations as convenient as gas stations.

rtkwe• 5 years ago

They would also need to provide infrastructure for charging the fleet, possibly multiple times a day depending on what the routes look like, which is a significant cost if they want to do more than one battery worth of a route in a day, even if they did have short enough routes that they could do overnight charging for everything that's still a lot of power draw and would need expensive electrical upgrades. Sticking with gas there's no further infrastructure investment required.

runawaybottle• 5 years ago

Oh god, it looks so cute.

Mountain_Skies4• 5 years ago

I wonder what they're going to do with the old vehicles that are being replaced. During the last replacement cycle, the used vehicle market was flooded with surplus Jeeps. One of my brother's friends got one for $12 at auction. They were inexpensive first vehicles for teenagers though not all that safe.

My understanding is that UPS scraps their vehicles once they've exhausted their usefulness, which is why you don't see used UPS vehicles driving around with the logo painted over. Would USPS do the same?

jedimastert• 5 years ago

I'm guessing they wouldn't be strictly street legal for general use?

Mountain_Skies4• 5 years ago

Demolition derbies are going to have lots of new crush stock.

zelon883• 5 years ago

I've always wondered certain vehicles were chosen for fleets. However the original mail truck always made sense to me. It was small, durable, and simple with it's OHV engine and solid rear axle. But what about other civil service cars? When I was growing up the de-facto Police vehicle and taxi cab was the Panther platform Ford Crown Victoria. A rear wheel drive, V8, large, lumbering, expensive, complex luxury sedan that mostly lives in cities such as Boston and NYC where it snowed half the year and rarely could ever go faster than 50mph. Yet almost unanimously everyone decided to go with the 12mpg option that had almost twice the moving pieces in it's engine as the competition with smaller engines.

raldi2• 5 years ago

NYPD uses Impalas

zelon883• 5 years ago

That's slightly better, but they have used Crown Victoria's in the past. Kind of hard to continue using them when they've long been discontinued.

But still, why the Impala? Why an 18mpg, FWD, 300hp transversely mounted engine design? Why kneecap yourself with a shit car? When do they use the full potential of the Impala, or the Crown Vic, or the EcoBoost Explorer? Even in the 90s and 2000s. Why not solicit contracts for custom vehicles? We could have had a 4d, 4WD Mitsubishi 3000GT Sedan Interceptor Edition. Instead there are enough Panther platforms cubed up in junkyards for every man woman and child in America.

It goes to show that the requirements for police vehicles are crafted by the police themselves. "We need a high performance, 2WD luxury car with... ahhh... three, NO four... yeah FOUR hundred horsepower!"

olivermarks3• 5 years ago

Those windscreens look expensive

masswerk2• 5 years ago

This made me wonder: has there ever been such a thing as brutalist car design?

(Meaning, a car designed for public services, exposing construction and functional requirements in a sculptural expression, which is not dictated by marketing requirements.)

djur• 5 years ago

The original jeep? Pretty much no ornamentation on these, lots of exposed structural parts, and most of the external coverings are practical (protective of the mechanisms and/or people in the vehicle). This basic design went directly into civilian service without any significant modifications (although the spartan aesthetic ended up being part of the marketing -- Willys even trademarked the grille design!).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willys_MB

masswerk2• 5 years ago

This may be a valid example (while I was thinking of excluding military vehicles, because these tend to have distinctive looks of their own.)

Here's a possible example, a Diamond Reo refuse truck, which also brings some to the sculptural aspects of brutalist design:

http://www.classicrefusetrucks.com/albums/WS/WS04.html

bmitc• 5 years ago

The designer on Twitter seems to be a bit whiny about having utilitarian constraints. I actually think the truck looks like a truck made to do a job and do it well, thus it looks great to me.

eecc• 5 years ago

Don’t these “bespoke design” make these tenders skyrocket in price? Couldn’t they have retrofitted a standard van?

These excesses - typically designed to feed the government undergrowth - remind me of what the early Thatcherites complained about.

gibolt2• 5 years ago

The article says the constraints couldn't be met any other way. Not requiring a bulky ICE engine in front of the cabin could remove the need for most of the ugly 'nose'.

Johnny5554• 5 years ago

The new trucks are odd looking for sure, but when they're commonplace they'll just be "normal" just like the current LLV mail trucks.

I'm glad they went with a utilitarian design, seems better to have a truck that does exactly what they want for the lowest cost than to spend money making it look "better" but also more expensive and/or less useful.

ricardobayes• 5 years ago

USPS has an insane structure. Its leadership consists of government officials, but it gets 0 taxpayer funding, it's essentially a private company with government overhead. A fun-fact that its CEO, the "Postmaster General" is the second-highest paying position in the government after the President.

mjgs• 5 years ago

I think it looks futuristic and pretty cool, sure it’s a utility vehicle, but it would look totally fine in a movie set in 2041, maybe I am weird.

partomniscient• 5 years ago

We have to wonder which way cause and effect are running:

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/5e/64/9b/5e649ba44cdc59c8c6f4a605c...

simonebrunozzi• 5 years ago

By the time they will hit the road or shortly thereafter, electric powertrain will be a better alternative to ICE (Internal Combustion Engine). Poor planning.

xtiansimon• 5 years ago

My local USPS are driving the Mercedes-Benz Metris van, which replaced the Grumman LLV. What I miss most is the low gear acceleration noise. It was distinct and more times than not, upon hearing this the vehicle outside was the mail truck. The Mercedes is stealth in comparison. The story is just funny right there, but for recent packages having been stolen while I was home. I miss the ‘windup’ LLV.

asah• 5 years ago

last generation before self-driving trucks with robotic delivery arms?

true, parcels and overstuffed mailboxes would challenge robots, but the difference in cost would be so extreme, it would still be a net win... heck, you might be able to deliver mail more frequently, then send electronic notifications to users that their mailbox is full !

digitalsin• 5 years ago

That is the ugliest thing I have ever seen. Good lord.

korse• 5 years ago

I felt like this article could have been summarized in a single line.

Guess why the new mail truck looks 'weird'? PROJECT REQUIREMENTS such as view and mailbox accessibility.

I know this place has sunk a bit over the years but clickbait?

Why the new USPS mail trucks look so weird

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