The U.S. Postal Service is moving forward with plans to modernize and electrify the nation's largest federal fleet - plans that include purchasing more than 9,200 all-electric E-Transit vans from Ford.
The Postal Service announced last week that's it's awarded a contract to Ford to buy 9,250 left-hand drive Battery-Electric Vehicles (BEVs). If all goes as planned, deliveries of the E-Transit vans will commence in December and in a statement Ford says they'll take place through the end of 2024.
“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,” said Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO.
The Postal Service also announced additional contracts for three suppliers to deliver 14,000 charging stations. The Postal Service says over the next 12 months it plans to begin building out its charging infrastructure across a minimum of 75 locations and then continue to build the infrastructure out from there.
All of the recently awarded contracts fall under the vehicle electrification strategy announced by the USPS in December 2022 with White House officials. The plan announced intended acquisitions over the next five years of a 75 percent electric fleet of Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDV). Acquisitions of NGDV after 2026 will be 100 percent electric. Overall, the Postal Service says its total investment in vehicles is expected to reach $9.6 billion, which includes $3 billion from Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funds.
“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,” said Louis DeJoy, Postmaster General. “We have developed a strategy that mitigates both cost and risk of deployment – which enable 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.”
The USPS says it selected Ford followed a competitive search. The contract for 9,250 E-Transit vans is part of the Postal Service's earliest stages of the delivery vehicle replacement plan and will fill what the Postal Services calls an "urgent need for vehicles." These 100 percent fully-electric domestically sourced vehicles are part of the 21,000 Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) vehicles included in the Postal Service’s December 2022 vehicle acquisition plan.
No word yet on where the e-Transits will be deployed. Those details await final infrastructure plans and the Postal Service says it depends on a number of things including route characteristics and whether a left-hand drive vehicle is mission-suitable as well as other business considerations.
Also, the contract depends on the USPS's successful completion of the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement that the Postal Service announced it would undertake in August 2022, and the related issuance of its Record of Decision pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act.
Ford builds the E-Transit in Kansas City, Missouri.
The Postal Service also 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 is the charging station hardware and software needed to support EV charging at the facilities from which the delivery vehicles will operate.
The Postal Service says it's 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 says it 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 of the recently announced awards are contingent on the Postal Service’s satisfactory completion of National Environmental Policy Act requirements.
Read the full USPS press release here →
Photo Credit: USPS/Ford.