United States Postal Service (USPS) begins electrifying its nationwide fleet with 9,250 Ford E-Transit electric vehicles (EVs)

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has announced further details in its plans to electrify its nationwide fleet including the purchase of 9,250 Ford E-Transit electric vans. It has also placed initial orders for more than 14,000 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations to be deployed at USPS facilities. 

These awards are consistent with the vehicle electrification strategy announced by USPS in December of 2022, accompanied by senior White House officials. Overall, the Postal Service’s total investment in vehicles is expected to reach $9.6 billion, including $3 billion from Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funds. 

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The December 2022 plan announced intended acquisitions over the next five years of a 75 per cent electric fleet of next generation delivery vehicles (NGDV). Acquisitions of NGDV after 2026 will be 100 per cent electric. 

The Postal Service plans to begin building out its charging infrastructure across a minimum of 75 locations within the next 12 months, and thereafter to continue the infrastructure build-out in the succeeding years at many additional facilities as a part of our delivery vehicle electrification strategy.

Louis DeJoy, Postmaster General, said: “We are moving forward with our plans to simultaneously improve our service, reduce our cost, grow our revenue and improve the working environment for our employees. Electrification of our vehicle fleet is now an important component of these initiatives.

“We have developed a strategy that mitigates both cost and risk of deployment which enables execution on this initiative to begin now. I again want to thank the Administration officials and members of congress who have assisted us in this initiative. 

“Each has shown genuine understanding that our movement toward electrification must be thoughtful and deliberate, must appropriately manage risk and must be consistent with our primary delivery mission for the American people.”

Electric Delivery Vehicles 

Delivery of the 9,250 Ford E-Transit electric vans is intended to start in December of this year. This is assuming successful completion of the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement that USPS announced it would undertake in August 2022, and the related issuance of its Record of Decision pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act. 

These domestically sourced vehicles will be 100 per cent electric and are part of the 21,000 commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) vehicles included in the USPS’s vehicle acquisition plan announced in December 2022. The Ford E-Transit BEVs are manufactured in Kansas City, Missouri. 

Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO, said: “Ford is proud to support the United States Postal Service in delivering a more sustainable future for America by electrifying their fleet with over 9,200 E-Transit vans through the end of 2024. 

“Built by our dedicated UAW workforce at the Kansas City Assembly Plant, vehicles will be operated by the largest electric fleet in the country serving communities on every street corner. Together with USPS, we are committing to cleaner air and a better planet.”

Charging Infrastructure 

To support the charging for all the newly purchased electric vehicles, both the COTS vehicles announced today and future acquisitions including NGDV, the Postal Service awarded competitive contracts to three suppliers for the purchase of more than 14,000 charging stations to establish an initial and ongoing Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) inventory. 

This EVSE inventory is the charging station hardware and software needed to support EV charging at the facilities from which the delivery vehicles will operate. 

Commitment to Electrify

The Postal Service has been steadfastly committed to the fiscally responsible and mission-capable roll-out of electric-powered vehicles for America’s largest and oldest federal fleet. The agency has continually assessed its operational and infrastructure build-out capacity, financial position including IRA funds, and vehicle mix deployment over the past 12 months. 

The Postal Service anticipates that this commitment of funds by 2028 for both vehicles and charging infrastructure will result in a total of 66,230 electric delivery vehicles and an overall acquisition of 106,000 delivery vehicles. All awards in today’s announcement are contingent on the Postal Service’s satisfactory completion of National Environmental Policy Act requirements.

It’s good to hear that USPS have committed to electric vehicles on a large scale. Hopefully, this will lead the way for other large last-mile and inner-city delivery companies to follow suit. Last year, online retailer Amazon announced it intended to invest more than €1 billion to electrify its European transportation network. 

Ian Osborne
Ian Osborne
Editor-in-Chief at ElectricDrives

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