The Postal Service's 'Next Generation' Electric Delivery Vehicles Cost $22,000 More Than Other Electric Vans

With commercial off-the-shelf vehicles readily available, cheaper, and already used in its fleet, why did the USPS decide to commission its new trucks from Oshkosh Defense?

In 2014, the United States Postal Service (USPS) began replacing its fleet of delivery vehicles. In the almost 12 years since, only about 6 percent of its 51,500 custom-built delivery vehicles have been delivered. The Postal Service says the rollout will last at least two more years.

The signature USPS delivery truck is the Grumman Life Long Vehicle (LLV), which first entered service in 1986. Designed to last over 20 years, some have now been in service for twice as long, and don't include many modern amenities, like air conditioning and airbags. Maintaining the LLVs beyond their best-by date involved reverse-engineering the 130,000-strong fleet for discontinued parts, according to The Washington Post. In 2014, the USPS began its $9.6 billion fleet upgrade by announcing the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle (NGDV) program.

Oshkosh Defense, which produces rather mean-looking tactical vehicles for the American military (and has never before produced a delivery van), was awarded a multibillion-dollar contract in February 2021 to produce the NGDV for the Postal Service over 10 years. The Post details the production nightmare that ensued. After repeated delays, setbacks, and quadrupling the minimum number of electric NGDVs, thanks to a generous $3 billion subsidy from the Inflation Reduction Act, Oshkosh had only delivered 612 of 35,000 e-NGDVs by November 2025, and only 2,600 of the 16,500 internal combustion engine NGDVs.

The Postal Service agreed to pay Oshkosh $77,692 per e-NGDV and $54,584 per NGDV in March 2023. To put these numbers in context, FedEx's fleet of Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans is considerably cheaper, costing $50,830 for the baseline 2026 Sprinter and $61,180 for the 2026 eSprinter. (The Sprinter debuted in 1995 and the eSprinter rolled out in 2019, two years before the USPS awarded its Next Generation Delivery Vehicle contract to Oshkosh.)

Paying almost $80,000 per vehicle should have rung alarm bells, but what makes this situation worse is that the USPS knows cheaper alternatives exist. 21,000 of the Postal Service's new fleet are commercial off-the-shelf vans like the Ford E-Transit (whose 2026 model starts at $54,855). In 2023, there were nearly 40,000 Mercedes-Benz Metris vans (which start at $41,495) in its fleet. It's unclear why the agency decided to get bogged down with Oshkosh at all. Whatever the reasons may be, price is not one of them.

What comes as no surprise is that a generously subsidized quasi-governmental agency is wasting money and time on a boondoggle.

Comments

[Longtobefree]

Follow the money - - - - - - - -

Check campaign 'donations' of the corporation, and of it's officers.
Look into the goings on between the defense contracts and this one.
And squint real hard to figure out if we can Blame Biden, because he took office a whole month before the contract was awarded.
Or is the USPS corrupt no matter who is involved in the government?

[Ron]

the individual agencies are corrupt

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Government is corrupt, and invites private players to be corrupt.

[GOD OF PENGUIN ISLAND]

Sounds like you just want federal law enforcement to larp and put on a show!

[Kungpowderfinger]

I wonder how big of a dent would be made in all this if junk mail was outlawed.

[LISAFdn]

You seem to forget that the Postal Service has very unique requirements for its vans. They must have four tires and a steering wheel, wipers to keep rain off the windshield, brakes and turn signals. And that's just for starters. There's a seat needed for the driver and bumpers front and back, too.

It's hardly surprising that these vehicles sell for a premium.

[MollyGodiva]

Postal vehicles are unique. They need to be smaller that other delivery vans to be able to get near mailboxes and around parked cars. They also need the steer wheel on the other side. This means that the effort to design and retool factories for the postal vehicles can't be used for other vehicles. There is also only about 50k of them produced. $80k for them is not bad at all. Many consumer cars/SUVs/Trucks are over $80k.
Of all the things to get outraged over with government spending, this one does not make the cut.

[Ron]

most of the vans already are available as right hand steer in other parts of the world so ordering them would have been no problem

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Hogwash to it all, as evidenced by UPS, FedEx, Amazon, and other package delivery vans having no problem delivering the goods. Considering how many newish subdivisions don't even have mailboxes at individual houses, the USPS has it easier than the package carriers.

[Incunabulum]

Half my town, a decade after I moved here, still doesn't get home delivery.

*And* the local post office has not expanded how many PO boxes it has available either.

[Rossami]

And yet the Post Office already buys commercially available vans that are not unique. Your starting premise is wrong.

Yes, they do need to get near mailboxes and around parked cars. So do lots and lots of other delivery vehicles. Yes, they work better with a right-hand drive. It's not required, though. (My mother-in-law was a rural postal carrier back in the day and drove her regular left-sided car from the right seat. It was a reach but possible back in the days of bench seats.) And even if it was required, as Ron points out, right-hand drive versions are easily available around the world. The re-tooling to convert a car to the other drive is minor - certainly much, much less than the cost of building an entirely new vehicle.

I'll concede that fixing this won't solve the federal budget deficit all by itself. But that logic leads to paralysis. The longest journey begins with a single step. Why do you think we should not take this step?

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

"Your starting premise is wrong." Sums up every Molly post.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

My thinking was along those lines. Comparing a Sprinter to a rural delivery mail truck is apples and oranges. They don't actually do the same thing.

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

Walz +7

[Idaho-Bob]

Bullshit. Most of the rural delivery people around here have new-ish RHD Jeep Wranglers. These are privately owned 4WD and cost the same as a LHD Jeep Wrangler. ~$48K brand new.

If the govvy needed 50,000 unit the price would be significantly lower. Additionally, in climates where 4WD is not required, the price drops by $5K per unit.

[yet another dave]

Oshkosh won them over by submitting their design created by a crack team of 4 year old engineers. Ensuring postal workers continue to look like dorks for the forseeable future

[Eeyore]

You gotta pay extra to look that bad.

Looks like a beluga whale with mongolism had a baby with an autobot from the transformers.

[mad.casual]

Does it come with the "Go Around: If it was meant to be fast, it wouldn't be shaped like a brick" bumpersticker?

[Eeyore]

Certainly doesn't need the sticker. Maybe a warning sign? Like the frequent stops warning sign I've seen on garbage trucks.

[Incunabulum]

Doesn't matter. Just repeat 'the fraud is not widespread and it's mostly white men'.

[acda999]

Fascism at its finest. See also, Amtrak's need for special rolling stock, despite off-the-shelf options perfectly serving much larger passenger rail systems.

[mad.casual]

why did the USPS decide to commission its new trucks from Oshkosh Defense?

You're gonna make me say it aren't you? [sigh] Because electric vehicles are just. really. popular.

Who cares that specifically for freight hauling the $/lb./mi. makes EVs fundamentally more expensive? We've got a federal jobs program to modernize and electrify!

[Rossami]

In fairness, the low-speed, start-stop driving that postal delivery vans do is pretty much the ideal condition for EV/hybrid over gas-only engines. On a $/lb·mi basis in those conditions, they outperform gas engines.

They are nevertheless wildly unpopular for regular car owners because the rest of us don't drive that way. (Other reasons too but that's a big one.) By my own calculations (based on my driving conditions and style) of total cost of ownership, a Prius is not the cost-effective solution until gas consistently exceeds $4/gal.

The calculation for a pure EV is harder to describe because it can become cost-effective when either gas prices go up or electricity prices go down. Regardless, breakeven is quite a bit away from current prices.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Agreed. A plugin hybrid for rural delivery seems reasonable to me.

[Idaho-Bob]

Now consider 9000' elevations, 0°F temps, snow, ice, and mud in the spring.

[Rossami]

What percentage of the US postal delivery routes have to accommodate such conditions? As a proxy, you could use the percentage of population living in those conditions. Looking at an online elevation map, I'm seeing some rural communities and ... Santa Fe? Maybe? Even Denver's not quite that high up.

Wouldn't it make more sense to buy specialized vehicles for the tiny subset of routes needing that level of capability? Yes, there is value to standardization (lower maintenance costs, etc) but the break-even for that is generally about the 20th percentile.

[InsaneTrollLogic (smarter than The Average Dude)]

You’d probably use a different vehicle for that. Most suburban routes with curbside mailboxes could probably use a fully electric vehicle with as close together as these boxes are and that the distance isn’t all that far. They’d also be plugged in every night.

[Eeyore]

That's similar to where I live and USPS won't deliver to me. The ceiling at the post office leaks and the walls still have posters up from 20 years ago, but I guess new trucks are the priority.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Hey I'm all about ICE (cars not those icky cops) but hybrids have a gas engine that produces heat. My dad had a Prius in Michigan without any of those problems. Maybe not the best choice for Idaho. I will never have an electric car but only because I feel an obligation to future generations to promote global warming in any way I can.

[Rossami]

Huh? No. Rural delivery is not all low-speed and stop-start. Rural delivery is much closer to what the rest of us experience as mixed highway/residential driving. At current gas prices, a normal gas engine is almost certainly going to have the lower total cost of operation.

[JFree]

Prices of EV's in the US are ridiculous because there's a 100% tariff on them.

[mad.casual]

Slight disagreement, acknowledging your point(s) about electricity prices and gas prices (and variable freight volume):

On a $/lb·mi basis in those conditions, they can or could outperform gas engines.

Regenerative breaking reclaims some of the energy pushing the efficiency up, but the vehicle mass is larger and the lower freight ceiling pushing it back down. You can't capture all of the energy back no matter what you do, more mass (both vehicular and freight) reduces the efficiency, and the variable acceleration of variable loads only decreases the efficiency and/or exacerbates the mismatch. It's quite reasonable to assume that some fraction of the increased cost went into the niche engineering work. There's also, for this specific application, an unspoken floor where, lower volume delivery, stop and go is indistinguishable from or eclipsed by hand delivery.

Again, I'm absolutely not anti-electricity. I absolutely believe there are applications for which hybrids and EVs are superior. I just, for 20 yrs., have seen a lot of denial of the fundamental science, hucksterism, and outright government fraud in favor of ecological best intentions and the science-based opposition summarily dismissed along ideological lines.

I keep saying "When railroading time comes you can railroad—but not before." If we had a massive abundance of diverse energy and redundant energy sources, nuclear, gas, hydro, wind, solar, this would all be relatively moot. But that's not what people want. They want their time-travelling Deloreans that run on Mr. Fusion reactors because time-travelling Deloreans that run on Mr. Fusion reactors are the wave of the future.

[Kungpowderfinger]

Lift those fuckers and put Hemi’s in ‘em.

Make The Mail Great Again

[TJJ2000]

They'll cost a lot more to fuel as well.
There is ZERO EV advantage on larger trucks.

Scooters on 4-wheels with comfortable weather are the only EV category currently that gives EV less fueling cost and 100% of that savings comes from regulating/taxing the living sh*t out of fossil fuels.

[mad.casual]

Scooters on 4-wheels with comfortable weather are the only EV category currently that gives EV less fueling cost and 100% of that savings comes from regulating/taxing the living sh*t out of fossil fuels.

I wouldn't even necessarily go with 4-wheels and not everywhere does. Bike couriers are enormously popular in all kinds of urban areas even in relatively adverse weather and the efficiency of human-pedaled bikes puts even walking to shame. The problem, of course, is that human-pedaled bikes struggle to deliver single 300 lb. packages in a timely manner while larger vehicles struggle considerably less.

There's also a case to be had that with "gig technology" and POS delivery service, the entire scheme of dedicated, centralized package delivery infrastructure (especially as managed by the state) is itself an inefficiency to be eliminated.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

Rpeal the United States Junkmail Service!

[car-keynes]

Why not? Investing in three different companies follows the adage of not keeping all eggs in one basket. One company was expensive, one company was less expensive, and one company was even less expensive. However, the assets were diversified, This reads well from hindsight, where risky business of deciding who the top producers of EV technology would be was yet to be available data under a long-term course that only hindsight could attest to.

Of course, most tax payers would surely like the least expensive of the best performing models.