The Postal Service’s new delivery vehicles aren’t going to win a beauty contest. They’re tall and ungainly. The windshields are vast. Their hoods resemble a duck bill. Their bumpers are enormous.
“You can tell that (the designers) didn’t have appearance in mind,” postal worker Avis Stonum said.
Odd appearance aside, the first handful of Next Generation Delivery Vehicles that rolled onto postal routes in August in Athens are getting rave reviews from letter carriers accustomed to cantankerous older vehicles that lack modern safety features and are prone to breaking down — and even catching fire.
Within a few years of the initial rollout, the fleet will have expanded to 60,000, most of them electric models, serving as the Postal Service’s primary delivery truck from Maine to Hawaii.
Once fully deployed, they’ll represent one of the most visible signs of the agency’s 10-year, $40 billion transformation led by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who’s also renovating aging facilities, overhauling the processing and transportation network, and instituting other changes.
I was ready to say no, that’s just Ford Transit but couldn’t find conclusive evidence to confirm the minute body lines match a Ford and not a Mercedes Sprinter (my local variant). I went for one last attempt and searched “ford transit usps” and what do you know, we’re both right to some degree. The back vehicle is an electric Ford Transit and the USPS has ordered over 9,000 units. It’s not the “electric version” but rather a competitor to the Oshkosh lineup, which is the front truck. The Oshkosh NGDV is available as both gas and battery-electric.