Featured President wants to replace government fleet with EV's.

"It's claimed the factory will be able to produce 50,000 vehicles per year and that they will be entirely built by robots." I remember back when Elon Musk made similar claims about Telsa factories, until reality hit him squarely in the face. His quote:
"Excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated."

Nevertheless, upcoming vans like the Arrival, Rivian (for Amazon), and GM's Brightdrop look like they have way more capability than the EV being considered by the USPS. When you are considering making a purchase, and have narrowed it down to a few companies, then the whole industry changes and a new class of product is about to come out, maybe the best thing to do is hold off and take another look.

 

Sounds like a bad part of the business plan. Automation can do a lot but if you are only making 50,000/year its going to cost a lot more than humans. My guess is this was just bluster before Arrival went public with their SPAC. I think the idea behind a microplant for vehicle assembly is a good one though. It can definitely be done using humans for the things they are good at, and automation for others. The biggest problem with them is supply chain.

Tesla did need to automate the battery packs as the labor intense method they used for the model S and X would really hurt their costs and ability to scale up. Those battery packs are now automated, and more human labor on the line has meant less rework and fewer employees to actually build each vehicle. They should be able to produce 750,000 vehicles this year despite the hiccup and learning. They think they can sell them all which would be 50% growth from last year. That's pretty impressive even if its only 650,000 vehicles this year.

Since it appears requirements are changing they should allow companies to rebid with the new requirements. This should be a fast for the post office process as GM, Ford, Rivian, are now further along and all have delivery van designs that could be easily modified for the post office. They did open bidding before and it has taken too long. Work Horse like Arrival has supplied UPS with plug-in delivery vans and is the only BEV bidder. Ford bid using a engine powered van with Oshkosh, but was working with dhl about building them frames for bev postal vans using their e-transit platform (A bev transit connect delivery van was first made by ford and azure in 2010, but azure had financial difficulties and the project ended.) Gm and Rivian should be given a chance too. Arrival has a South Carolina micro plant but I have doubts they could scale to produce for the post office.

 

Japans new Postal vehicle

Japan Post to Introduce 1,200 EVs for Delivery Services | Nippon.com

US Postal service vehicle testing

USPS Completes Next-Generation Delivery Vehicle Tests | Trucks.com

US Postal Inspector General Vehicle acquisition strategy - no wonder it is taking so long

https://www.uspsoig.gov/document/delivery-vehicle-acquisition-strategy

 

I'll put this here, but it'll probably wind up on the political side.

 

U.S. Postal Service Ignores EPA's Critique Of New Mail Trucks, Buys Them Anyway (motortrend.com)

The EPA claims the acquisition process that awarded Oshkosh the Postal Service deal was seriously flawed. Here are the major complaints outlined in the lengthy letter:

• The deal did not follow the appropriate process outlined by the National Environmental Policy Act and was awarded prior to the review process outlined by NEPA.
• The Postal Service "executed a contract, including the award of $482 million, before any analysis of the environmental impacts of the project as required by NEPA. "
• The contract's Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) left out critical information and underestimated greenhouse gas emissions from its new ICE vehicles, while overestimating emissions from BEVs, compared to EPA analysis which was provided to the Postal Service.
• The Postal Service's own analysis showed nearly 95-percent of mail carrier routes could be electrified, but only allocated 10-percent of electrified vehicles.
• The Postal Service did not publicly disclose the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for the new vehicles in the EIS.
• "The TCO report analysis that served as the basis for the Postal Service's selection… is not transparent and is potentially flawed and out of date. "
• The TCO "did not consider the financial risk from near complete reliance on petroleum-based fuels with volatile prices. "
• The EIS failed to consider a single alternative to the accepted proposal, but outlined a 100-percent BEV fleet as completely unfeasible.
• The EIS inadequately regards the impact on communities and environmental justice concerns.
• The current contract is "a crucial lost opportunity to more rapidly reduce the carbon footprint of one of the largest government fleets in the world. "
• The current contract violates "Executive Orders 140086 and 140377 and their policies, in addition to the U.S. economy-wide target under the Paris Agreement to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions to 50-52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, consistent with achieving net zero emissions

The new truck only offers a "0.4-mile-per-gallon fuel economy improvement over the agency's current fleet," the EPA claims. It's hardly better than a 30-year-old truck. The letter also complains that only 10 percent of the new vehicle fleet is currently contracted to be fully electric.

Next-gen USPS mail trucks are only capable of 8.6 mpg, EPA says - Postal Times
USPS sticks with decision to buy inefficient 8.6 mpg trucks | Ars Technica

 

It would be nice to have USPS Vehicles not stink by switching to electric, but NOT considering traditional automakers that have the expertise? Even Toyota saw the wisdom of procuring EV's (to comply with early CARB rules), by sending glider Rav4's to Tesla. Tesla supplied the guts & Toyota the body/chassis. You go with anyone with experience. OOOPS. Not this admin. If they need jeans, they'd call Winnebago.
.

 

air conditioned with the drivers window always open.

i guess the good news is that they are only committed to delivered vehicles

 

Part of the issue seems to be the status of USPS as a weird independent quasi-agency.

"This admin" actually would like USPS to do a less slipshod procurement study, but the admin doesn't have the same ability to say "so, go do that" they would have if it were an actual agency reporting to them.

Sounds like the "so, go do that" part might as likely come from some non-governmental org or other taking USPS to court.

 

Bias blinded?

The bidding process started in Feb 2015. This isn't like buying a truck for business. The USPS puts out a list of their requirements, and companies choose whether they want to be considered. Of the all companies and partnerships that applied, 15 were chosen later the year to actually develop a prototype. Sept 2016 is when the 6 finalist bidders were selected, and awarded a contract to build prototypes for testing. The winner was announced Feb 2021.

Before you go blaming Obama, the President doesn't have a say in the day to day dealings of the post office. They get to appoint governors to a 9 person board, who have to be confirmed by the Senate before getting the job. There was just 3 seats filled when the bidding process started. Term limits meant only one would the first year of Trump's term. Obama had named 4, but the Senate refused to confirm them.

They did confirm Trump's appointees, who went one to put DeJoy in the Postmaster General position. The testing period and ultimate selection for the new mail truck was all under Republicans.

Now, while it would have been nice for have a Telsa post truck, where was the company at in 2015? They were ramping up Model S production, bringing out the Model X, and working on the Model 3. They were in no position to fill a government contract the size of the next mail truck. The deal with Toyota was for just 3000 Rav4's over multiple years. Tesla doesn't even have a delivery van available now. They have had to partner up with somebody else like Workhorse did to even get past the first round of applications. But considering who had say in who got the contract, Tesla wouldn't have been chosen anyway.

 

Know of another way to keep workers dying from heat stroke?
Worker safety is also why the contract proposal called for a side cargo door. The rear door only resulted in some employees getting hit by cars.

 

Ford Electric Etransit Cargo Vans - also come in gas or Natural Gas

Ford to sell all-electric Transit cargo vans in the US | CNN Business

Ford was a US Automaker that didn't have to be bailed out by the US Government a few years ago.

 

One of the contract finalists was using modified Transits.

 

The turbo diesel MB sprinter works great as a chassis for Class C motorhome providing nearly 40% better MPG than the comparable V10 / Ford offering. The fuel economy eventually outweighs the additional cost ..... at least that's been our experience so far (doing our own maintenance) . And if diesel stays way too expensive, I suppose we could always look into filtering restaurant french fry grease


.

 

You can buy the Ford Transit vans off the lot in - electric, gas or natural gas - with many different body configurations.

I think an enterprising company would buy these American made vehicles at a tremendous fleet discount for bulk purchase - and then have a company to modify thousands upon thousands of these American made vehicles for the job and have just the vehicles they need with moderately priced replacement parts available and standardized maintenance easy to perform - but this is the government spending other people's money so all bets are off on reasonable decisions.

 

Government procurement rules meant to prevent corruption and provide a level playing field mean long waits between specs and delivery. And then throw in nothing was available in EV that met the specs back when the proposals had to be submitted.

I'd be enthused if only my mail delivery wasn't 3-4 days slower than when I moved here 15 years ago. Imagine a weekly news magazine (The Economist. When I used to travel a lot for work it was the most dense reading for the plane rides) that used to arrive 80% on Saturday but no less than Monday. Today is Wednesday and no sign of it.

 

I had to communicate with a company two months ago to straighten out a billing issue.

They had sent out the bill okay but we didn't receive it until after the payment due date. They were understanding and said many other customers had the same issue. Their solution is going to be to adjust their billing cycle timing.

 

One of the finalist designs was exactly that. It was actually OshKosh's second entry they did with a partner; don't recall if it was Ford directly. The RHD models might come from Europe though.

Going by the chosen design, and other submissions. The forward visibility may not have been the best of the bunch on the transit.

The USPS doesn't get government money. They get to keep what a private business would pay in federal taxes, but that's it.

 

USPS is switching to electric mail trucks, in reversal for Trump-era postmaster general

Postal Service to buy 66,000 electric vehicles to transform fleet (cnbc.com)

Good to hear - hope they revisit the vendor selection for the vehicles also

 

Dang, I wanted to hold DeJoy up as the poster boy of Republican corruption. Now he is just incompetent.

Bob Wilson