The U.S. Postal Service’s multibillion-dollar program to purchase electric mail delivery trucks is severely delayed, another bungled EV program to further tarnish Joe Biden’s presidency.
The Washington Post reports that the U.S. Postal Service’s ambitious plan to modernize its aging delivery fleet with electric vehicles is significantly behind schedule. The $10 billion project, which received $3 billion in funding from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, is a crucial part of outgoing President Joe Biden’s climate change agenda.
According to internal company records and interviews with individuals familiar with the project, the Postal Service had received only 93 of the “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles” (NGDVs) from contractor Oshkosh as of November. This falls far short of the 3,000 trucks that were expected by this point in the rollout.
The delays are attributed to various manufacturing difficulties that Oshkosh allegedly failed to disclose to the Postal Service for over a year. These issues include problems with calibrating the vehicles’ airbags and water leaks during testing. Currently, Oshkosh’s South Carolina factory can only produce one truck per day, despite plans to manufacture more than 80 vehicles daily by this stage.
The significant setbacks mean that the project, once hailed as a hallmark of Biden’s industrial and climate agenda, may not take shape until long after he leaves office in January 2025. With Republicans set to take control of Congress and the White House, and Trump-aligned officials eyeing cuts to government spending, the future of the electric vehicle funding is uncertain.
House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) expressed concerns about the electric vehicle money, suggesting it may be “clawed back” as part of significant reforms over the next four years.
The Postal Service is slated to purchase 60,000 NGDVs, mostly electric, from Oshkosh. However, the company has struggled to meet production targets and has raised prices. In March 2023, the cost for 35,000 vehicles rose to $2.6 billion, with electric models costing $77,692 per truck and gas-powered versions at $54,584 each.
Oshkosh has warned investors that its performance under the USPS contract may not meet expectations, citing risks such as longer-than-anticipated engineering time to finalize the production vehicle design and extended tooling and factory build-out activities.
As the delays persist, some postal leaders have privately called for the agency to move away from Oshkosh, considering alternatives such as electric vehicles from General Motors and start-up Canoo. The Postal Service has already purchased and deployed over a thousand Ford eTransit electric vans, which are currently making deliveries.
Read more at the Washington Post here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.