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The United States Postal Service has made a selection for its future mail trucks — and they’re going electric. On Tuesday, Oshkosh Defense announced the USPS has selected the Wisconsin-based military vehicle manufacturer to build the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle, or NGDV. The USPS awarded the company a 10-year, $482 million contract to make the new mail trucks.
Not only will Oshkosh help the USPS go electric with battery-electric mail carrier trucks, but it also plans to include “fuel-efficient low-emission internal combustion engine vehicles” as part of the contract. It’s unclear what purpose these will serve, however, especially noting President Joe Biden’s pledge to move the federal fleet to 100% electric vehicles. Oshkosh did not immediately return a request for comment.
The selection process has remained highly secretive with a handful of competitors, including Lordstown Motors (previously Workhorse) and a Turkish company by the name of Karsan. The Biden administration‘s recent Buy American order beefs up provisions to purchase more US-made goods, so it seemed Karsan was out of the running. Oshkosh’s original proposal did not include an electric mail carrier, which seemed to put Lordstown in a good spot. Oshkosh clearly met the USPS’ needs best.
As for Oshkosh’s prototype truck, it’s actually based on a Ford Transit. Ford in the past confirmed it was working with Oshkosh on the USPS mail truck prototype, but it’s not clear how the vehicle has evolved over the past few years. Ford declined to comment on its work with Oshkosh and the NGDV program.
We’ll have much to learn about the future mail carriers, but this is a big day for USPS. The agency’s current fleet of Grumman Long Life Vehicles are well past their expiration date. Production of the new mail trucks is scheduled to start in 2023 as Oshkosh begins the decade-long contract to build between 50,000 and 165,000 vehicles.
