Yes, It ‘Looks Like a Duck,’ but Carriers Like the New Mail Truck

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By Michael Levenson, The New York Times. 

Excerpt: For 19 years, Richard Burton, a letter carrier in Athens, Ga., drove the classic boxy mail truck, with only a fan on the dashboard to keep the cabin cool in the sweltering summer months. ...about two months ago, Mr. Burton, 46, became one of the first letter carriers in the United States to get a long-awaited upgrade: a new electric mail truck with air-conditioning, a 360-degree camera and a sliding cargo door on the side that allows the unloading of packages directly onto the sidewalk. ...The new mail trucks — 10 years in the making — have started rolling into American neighborhoods, and the early reviews from letter carriers are positive. Many have complained for years that the mail trucks they have been driving, which were introduced in the 1980s, break down frequently and are stiflingly hot, as climate change pushes temperatures to greater extremes. The rear cargo space is so small, they say, that they have to crouch inside to grab packages. ...The Next Generation Delivery Vehicle, as the new truck is called, promises some long-overdue relief. ...Mr. Burton said that people on his route have been stopping him to take photos and to ask if they can peek inside. ...“It is the goofiest thing in the world when you first look at it,” said Douglas Lape, a special assistant to the president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, a union that represents 205,000 postal delivery workers. “But I will tell you, it grows on you.” The mail trucks are the most prominent piece of the Postal Service’s plan to invest $9.6 billion to modernize its fleet of aging delivery vehicles and make them more efficient, safer and better equipped to carry packages. The Postal Service ordered 50,000 of the new trucks in March 2022, according to Oshkosh Defense, the Wisconsin company that won the contract to produce the vehicles at a plant in Spartanburg, S.C. ...A month later, attorneys general from 16 states and the District of Columbia, along with five environmental groups and the United Auto Workers union, sued the Postal Service, complaining that most of the new vehicles would be gas-powered, undercutting the fight against climate change. In December 2022, the Postal Service changed course and announced that 75 percent of the new mail trucks would be battery-powered. The trucks are designed to travel about 70 miles on a single charge, more than enough for the 12 to 15 miles of daily driving that city letter carriers generally do, including frequent stops, Mr. Lape said.... 

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