Like a letter or bundle that was considered misplaced however lastly will get delivered, and after greater than 10 years of planning, deliberation and infighting, america Postal Service (USPS) has begun to problem its new electrical Subsequent Era Supply Car to letter carriers.
The NGDVs are constructed by Oshkosh Protection, which gained the contract to make the automobiles in 2021. They’re being manufactured at a manufacturing unit in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and 75% of them will likely be battery-electric automobiles.
“Our huge expertise in delivering automobiles that excel in probably the most demanding situations positions us to offer reliability, security and maintainability for many years forward,” mentioned Tim Block, President of Oshkosh Protection.
To say the NGDV stands out visually could be a substantial understatement. The automobile’s design features a large windshield and a low-slung hood, the latter of which was designed to permit the motive force—regardless of top—to see the highway, giving it the looks of a kind of goofy mid-to-late twentieth century baseball- or baseball cap-shaped bullpen carts.
However letter carriers aren’t making enjoyable of the automobile or its seems.
The vans have a variety of 70 miles, greater than ample for the day by day common of 12 to fifteen miles coated by a typical city letter provider. Not like the automobiles they’re changing—the Grumman Lengthy Life Car, which was the primary metropolis letter provider automobile for which the USPS developed specs versus shopping for off the shelf—they’ve air con, a characteristic that was roundly applauded by the half dozen nameless mail carriers who offered suggestions on the automobile.
The brand new automobiles even have more room for packages, a nod to the Amazonification that the postal service has undergone, as letter carriers right now ship much more packages and much fewer letters and magazines than they did in the course of the twentieth century.
Whereas the Grumman vans needed to be unloaded from the rear, which resulted in just a few accidents and the occasional loss of life once they have been hit by oncoming automobiles, the brand new vans have the cargo door on one facet, permitting packages to be unloaded straight onto the curb.
Letter carriers participated within the technique of designing the specs for the brand new truck, which started in 2014. A few of their options—together with non-skid surfaces, lights on the doorsteps and a 3rd solar visor for the windshield—have been integrated into the ultimate design. The vans even have the identical fundamental security options that new autos right now characteristic, comparable to airbags and driver-assistance applied sciences comparable to computerized emergency braking and a collision-avoidance system.
One letter provider, Larry, who drives a battery-electric hybrid to work in New York Metropolis from Suffolk County utilizing the HOV lane, predicted to a reporter that the looks of the brand new electrical vans on streets will immediate the set up of charging stations that native workers can use as nicely, which was beneficial by the Basic Accounting Workplace in 2023. The chargers, he mentioned, would make it simpler for him to buy an EV for himself for his commute.
It’s clear that the NGDVs will allow postal couriers to serve with higher constancy, maybe at some point reaching the excessive aspirational customary of the Persian mounted postal couriers Herodotus described in Guide 8, Paragraph 98 of “The Persian Wars,” who “…are stopped neither by snow nor rain nor warmth nor darkness from carrying out their appointed course with all velocity.”
Supply: Oshkosh Protection
