Should We Electrify USPS Mail Trucks?
If we used electric vehicles for the U.S. Postal Service, the noise, air, and CO₂ pollution levels in communities could decrease.
Electric cars. When you hear that, you think Tesla, sleek chargers, and an energy-efficient solution to car emissions. Electric cars have already revolutionized the car industry, from lowering fuel and maintenance costs to paving the path for using eco-friendly modes of transport. For example, the amount of battery electric vehicles in use increased from 3.27 to 4.79 million in the world from 2018 to 2019.
But have you heard of electric mail trucks? The thought is interesting, but you might not have heard of the idea before. Don’t worry though, because it’s not your fault.
Mail trucks haven’t changed for the past 25 years.
This boxy, loud USPS truck is very familiar to Americans. It’s called the Grumman Long Life Vehicle (LLV), built by the Grumman Aerospace Corporation (now Northrop-Grumman).
As of 2018, the US Postal Service owns and operates 229,000 total vehicles, more than 141,000 of which are LLVs.
LLV’s were considered sophisticated back in 1994, but that was more than 20 years ago. Technology, transport, and engineering have made great advancements since then. Additionally, we are doing our best to lower the use of fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy sources like driving electric cars, powering large factories with solar panels or wind farms, and even using organic matter (biomass) to power airplanes and buses.
In the grand scheme of things, USPS trucks, which are of immense importance to the daily life of many Americans, are lagging behind. These vehicles produce a significant amount of pollution and pose many other problems, such as safety hazards.
Many solutions have emerged in the past few months because of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, one solution could result in the most benefits, including improved public health, more efficient public services, and lower climate pollution.
It’s electrifying mail trucks.
Why Should We Get Rid of Our Current Mail Trucks?
We can see that electric mail trucks could be beneficial, but how? How can this concept help the environment while serving the American population day and night?
It would save the USPS hundreds of millions of dollars in fuel costs every year.
According to the Department of Energy, “…it costs less than half as much to travel the same distance in an EV than a conventional vehicle.”
Hence, switching to electric vehicles can save a lot of money. USPS needs billions of dollars a year to operate (along with $500 million a year for fuel), so switching to EVs could be a great money-saver. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a sharp drop in mail volume, and postmaster Megan Brennan said that the USPS will “run out of cash this fiscal year” without further financial assistance.
Furthermore, electricity costs are proven to be much more stable than fossil fuels (shown above), so projected costs would end up being more accurate.
The LLVs are outdated and can be very dangerous.
These vehicles could only be considered sophisticated a few decades ago. They lack the technologies that we have in many cars today, such as anti-lock brakes, air conditioning, and airbags.
Additionally, the trucks are too small for today’s e-commerce packages and are prone to catching on fire.
These aging vehicles cost the USPS $2 billion a year, even though their average age is 28 and their lifespan should be 24. Their age results in the USPS often having difficulty finding mechanics who can work on them. In addition to a dwindling budget and pandemic-related health issues, the aging fleet of LLV’s is making the USPS’s debt problem even worse.
The vehicles are inefficient and damaging to the environment.
First of all, LLV’s only get about 10 miles per gallon, which is nothing compared to the average fuel economy 24.9 mpg for new 2017 model year cars, light trucks, and SUVs in the U.S. Also, the USPS used about 194.5 million GGEs of gasoline and diesel in 2019.
This means that about 4.35 billion pounds of CO₂ were released by USPS last year (based on the rule of 1 gallon of gasoline produces 22.38 pounds of CO₂). Additionally, vehicle fuel represents roughly half of the USPS’s energy consumption, which, at 44 trillion BTU, is the highest of any agency in the federal government.
On the other hand, electric vehicles generate no air pollution or greenhouse gas emissions. Shifting to electric trucks would improve air quality everywhere in the nation, reducing respiratory and heart problems among the population. If USPS switched to electric trucks, it would not only become a leader in the United States’ sustainability efforts but would also be very helpful to people in urban areas with vulnerable cardiorespiratory systems.
How Can This Be Done?
Switching thousands of trucks with another model is much easier said than done. Why do we know this? We’ve already tried before.
Believe it or not, but the USPS launched the process of procuring 186,000 new next-generation delivery vehicles (NGDVs) with a design request for proposals (RFP) back in 2015. Originally, it planned to conclude testing and prototyping and award a final production contract by 2018, with vehicles deployed by summer 2019. As you can see, that never happened.
Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic, it will be even harder to replace the vehicles. First of all, EVs have higher upfront prices than their gasoline counterparts. Additionally, the USPS fleet of trucks is comprised of 140,000 LLV’s, so they would have to spend billions of dollars to replace them, which would be very difficult due to the current situation.
Moreover, USPS does not receive any taxpayer money for operational expenses. It pays for them through sales of postage and services, which are going down just like everything else. They have also warned the U.S. government that they could run out of money by September.
Many people have been debating how the federal government will spend money to keep the economy afloat during the coronavirus pandemic, and the USPS is hoping that it goes to them.
If some of it was invested into electrifying mail trucks, more money would be saved in the long term — especially the gasoline costs, which are projected to rise. This could be the idea that saves the USPS.
What Does This Mean for the Future?
I believe this idea has great potential — from saving money to helping the environment. Although many things have to be done to accomplish the feat of electrifying mail trucks, it will result in great benefits.
However, I believe that this project could become something much bigger. Many people believe that the USPS will become a pioneer of sustainability and has thought of bigger and more ambitious reforms for the postal offices (in addition to EVs as postal trucks), such as:
- offering basic banking services
- attaching pollution sensors to USPS trucks
- put EV chargers next to post offices to charge vehicles, and the public could use them too, at low, fixed rates, like they pay rates for postage
- put literature about the cost savings and pollution reductions of electric mail trucks in every mailbox
- install solar panels on the roofs of postal offices
- and much, much more!
Electrifying mail trucks is only the first step on a path to make the Earth a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable place to live in. I’m hoping that this can be accomplished, and am very excited about what’s coming in the future.
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