The Future of Mail
A rapidly accumulating mountain of goods purchased online are shipped on undersized delivery trucks often 20 years old or more, which has the U.S. Postal Servicer seeking roomier vehicles with safety and energy-saving features.
The U.S. Postal Service intends to decide from five contending carriers, including two overseas brands and an electric vehicle. Contract awards to build prototypes were valued at $37.4 million, according to a public statement and request for proposal from the postal service.
Drivers began trying out test models of the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle in early fall in at least six markets, chosen because of their varied weather conditions and traffic volume. The USPS will select one or more delivery vans to replace up to 180,000 mail trucks over the next seven years, resulting in an estimated $6.3 billion of business, Trucks.com said in a November 2017 report. Citing the postal service, author Craig Guillot wrote that "real-world" testing launched in Flint and Utica, Michigan; Leesburg and Manassas, Virginia; and Tucson and Tempe, Arizona.
Competitors include three individual companies ¬– AM General, Oshkosh and Mahindra – and teams VT Hackney/Workhorse Group and Karsan/Morgan Olson. The winner of the vehicle contract will be announced in early 2018, the article noted, citing the postal service.
The USPS' present fleet is aging. Of the 215,000 mail trucks in operation, 140,000 are at least two decades old, the service noted in the Trucks.com piece. USPS started operating the current delivery van, the Grumman Long Life Vehicle, in 1987.
The VT Hackney/Workhorse Group model is electric. If the USPS picks an electric vehicle, it will become the largest electric vehicle fleet in the world, Jeffrey Osborne, a Cowen & Co. automotive analyst, told Trucks.com. "It would be a pretty pronounced step, in terms of showing that electric vehicles are ready to hit prime time," he said.
The postal service reportedly talked to employees and others to come up with the vehicle prototype proposal.
"Our suggestions and input were to make the vehicle safer, more ergonomic and more efficient," Brian Renfroe, executive vice president of the 283,000-member National Association of Letter Carriers, said in the article.
He noted that the new delivery vehicle requires a larger capacity than the Grumman vehicle to handle the increase in e-commerce packages. Parcel volume has increased at a double-digit rate annually since 2015, Trucks.com said, basing the findings on the letter carrier association's figures.
According to Trucks.com, the postal service wants delivery vans that will last 18 to 20 years, steer on the right and have two-wheel drive with a four-wheel drive option. The cargo and cab would be built of aluminum alloy or composite materials. The van would have sliding side doors and optional air conditioning. Minimum payload capacity would be 1,500 pounds. Headroom would be at least 76 inches, allowing space enough for a 6-foot-5 letter carrier to stand up, the Trucks.com article noted.
Among the manufacturers in the running, Indiana-based AM General built the Hummer H1 and the present military Humvee. Karsan Otomotive, a European specialty car maker headquartered in Turkey, joined up with Michigan-based walk-in van manufacturer Morgan Olson, which has worked with the postal service before to design a prototype using hybrid technology. Indian manufacturer Mahindra, which builds right hand drive commercial vehicles through its U.S. division, uses a 2.5-liter General Motors engine on its model. Based in Wisconsin, Oshkosh designs fire trucks, snow plows and blowers, and aircraft rescue. It's built 35,700 tactical truck and trailers for the U.S. Army since 2009. VT Hackney, builder of specialized truck bodies in Washington, North Carolina; and Ohio based Workhorse, which makes chassis' for FedEx Ground, USPS and DHL, employs a BMW gas engine that acts as a generator to extend the range of its electric model.
"Our goal is to obtain vehicles that will help us provide reliable and efficient delivery service for customers and honor our commitment to reducing the environmental impact of our fleet, while meeting the needs of our employees to best do their jobs safely," the USPS said in its request for proposal.
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