No offense to snails, but they aren’t very fast. They seem to have that in common with the slow progression of building an electric mail truck fleet. Taxpayer funds went into creating a green fleet that should be further along by now. 

Building an electric mail truck fleet is taking forever 

Back in 2022, the Biden Administration planned to create a green electric mail truck fleet. This $10 billion project calls for over 35,000 battery-powered United States Postal Service vehicles to arrive by September 2028. 

While that’s three years away, you may think there is plenty of time to build the trucks. However, only 250 models have been built during the past two years. 

The defense contractor, Oshkosh, agreed to accept $2.6 billion from the USPS to build these vehicles. But according to the NY Post, the company agreed to provide 3,000 electric trucks by November 2024. Only 93 units were built by the deadline. 

A factory in Spartanburg, South Carolina, builds one truck per day when it’s supposed to churn out 80 models daily. 

Oshkosh claims production has been challenging due to engineering hurdles such as faulty airbag calibration and body leaks. Also, the company claims that it tried to warn USPS about the production issues but got blocked by superiors. 

So far, about $1.7 billion has been invested, and Republicans want to rescind $1.3 billion earmarked for the IRA. But the USPS does need modern trucks to improve operations.

The current mail trucks date back to 1987. They are expensive to maintain, fuel inefficient, and have been known to burst into flames. I’m shocked that so many of the trucks are still alive!