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.
Can’t wait for the inevitable safety issues and flips and other bullshit accompanied when the government can’t just buy market products for basic tasks and has to engage with special vendors instead. Just drive fucking consumer vans around.
The Dutch postal service has deployed a ton of ID.Buzz Volkswagen vans. They’re super cute, very recognizable and are off the shelves (with some custom frames inside most likely).
But most postal delivery is done by bike, which is not feasible in the United States (either large distances or unfit roads, or both).