The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) announced it has updated its plans for modernizing its fleet of delivery vehicles, to include an increase in electric vehicles in that order. The bill will prevent the Postal Service from making any new purchases for its new delivery vehicle fleet if 75% of new vehicles are electric or have zero emissions. Louis DeJoy, U.S. Postmaster General appointed by The Trump Administration, announced that only 10% of the 50,000 new vehicles under the order will be electric.
This week, the USPS actually released a revised plan to upgrade its NGDV fleet, following the pressure put forth by the Trump administration and public, and although it includes more electric vehicles, the Postal Service is stuck buying primarily gas-powered vehicles from Oshkosh Defense. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said Thursday in a statement that the postal service is fully committed to including electric vehicles as a meaningful portion of our delivery fleet, though the cost to the agency upfront would be higher with the electric vehicles compared with gas-powered vehicles. Connolly, however, said in a statement Thursday that the USPS is not yet doing enough to ensure electric vehicles are an important part of its fleet for the next generation, and called on Congress to enact a Postal Services Green Fleet Act.
The Postal Service, over Biden administration opposition, last month finalized plans to buy as many as 148,500 new internal-combustion vehicles over the next decade, and pledged to make electric vehicles at least 10% of its next-generation fleet. The Postal Service, under heavy congressional and Biden administration pressure, has redoubled initial orders of electric vehicles to be part of its Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDV) fleet.
The vehicles are Amazons next-generation delivery vans–electric vehicles–that will begin hitting the roads starting in 2021. The newest one, which is expected to start shipping packages to customers in 2021. Amazon has ordered 100,000 electric delivery vehicles–its largest-ever electric delivery car order–from Rivian, an emissions-free electric car maker that has a development center for vehicles in Plymouth, outside Detroit.
Amazon plans to put 10,000 new vehicles on the road by 2022, with all 100,000 vehicles on the road by 2030 — saving millions of tons of carbon annually through 2030. Consumers Energy plans to switch 100% of light-duty vehicles to electric by 2030. The Michigan utility plans to make 30 percent of its fleet–including all purchases of light-duty vehicles–electric by 2030.
Automotive industry reports show record sales of electric vehicles for 2021 in China, the United States, and Europe, and companies such as Amazon, UPS, and FedEx, which own significant fleets, are already starting to convert their vehicles, such as the ones used for Amazon, from gasoline-powered vehicles to electric. This focus on electric commercial vehicles is a change, both for carmakers and many advocates for sustainable development.
We are likely also going to see greater support for policies to promote car electrification, including tax incentives, charging infrastructure, and improvements in the electric grid – all of which will make greening their fleets more attractive to businesses. Whether you are a fleet manager or a worker who drives company cars, making the shift to electric vehicles would offer significant benefits: cost savings, cleaner environments, improved business environmental strategies. As the demand for electric vehicles in business grows, that is likely to push costs lower, which encourages carmakers to design even better, more efficient, electric trucks and vans.
The vehicles that come along will cost as much or less as the existing fossil-fuel vehicles, making the switch to EVs an inevitability, increasing adoption of electric technologies worldwide. All of the big delivery companies are beginning to replace their fleets powered by natural gas with electric or lower-emission vehicles, a change companies claim would improve their profits, but would also combat climate change and pollution in cities. To inspire businesses and employees to convert their current corporate fleets of vehicles to fully electric vehicles, T&E is featuring three successful stories proving any company can switch to fully electric right now, no matter the size of their fleet.
Among the global coalition of companies participating in the EV100, seven are committed to replacing parts or all of their fleets of vehicles with hydrogen-powered or plug-in electric vehicles – fully battery-electric, or plug-in hybrids combining a grid-charged battery with a regular engine. In addition, the 2019 review of the Clean Vehicles Directive seeks to speed up adoption of electric buses (and other publicly purchased vehicles) across EU countries, setting concrete targets for 2025 and the 2030 target year. President Biden, with Congressional Democrats, wants to completely transform all 228,000 postal delivery trucks and replace all 228 of them with electric vehicles–turning around the largest civilian fleet in the federal workforce, and getting rid of thousands of clunky, 10-mpg vans.
President Joe Biden plans to replace the governments vehicle and truck fleets with electric vehicles assembled in the United States, he said Monday as he signed the Buy American executive order. Shortly afterward, however, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy made the $600 million decision to replace the aging Postal Service fleet with 90% of its trucks powered by fossil fuels, eluding two other suitors who had proposed hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles and all-battery-electric vehicles. The next year, the post office announced that it was purchasing 6,000 electric vehicles from Ford Motor Co., starting with a preliminary order for 500 electric Ranger pickup trucks, at the time the only major order for electric vehicles in United States history. In 1999, Levinson took advantage of a new EV delivery fleet, and drove the nations first fleet of fully electric Post Office delivery vehicles to the Harbor City area of Los Angeles, also helping the post office fulfill its Federal Alternative Vehicle Requirement.