U.S. Postal Service to Buy More EVs

By Christian Roselund

On 20 December 2022 the U.S. Postal Service announced that it plans to acquire at least 66,000 battery electric delivery vehicles as part of its acquisition of 106,000 vehicles over the next five years. This is the latest in a series of increased EV purchase commitments by the Postal Service in 2022. It follows both pressure on the Postal Service to align with President Biden’s greenhouse gas reduction targets and additional funding for the agency through the Inflation Reduction Act.

The Postal Service expects to order at least 45,000 EVs as part of its order of at least 60,000 Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDV). These NGDV are built for the postal service by specialty and military vehicle manufacturer Oshkosh Corporation. Additionally, the Postal Service expects to order 21,000 additional commercial off-the-shelf EVs, but notes that this number will depend on market availability and operational feasibility.

In a press statement, the Postal Service says that the move to more EVs is enabled by overall network modernization efforts. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy notes that while most of the EV funding will come from the agency itself, “The $3 billion provided by Congress has significantly reduced the risk associated with accelerating the implementation of a nationwide infrastructure necessary to electrify our delivery fleet.”

The U.S. Postal Service operates one of the largest fleets in the world, with over 220,000 vehicles. By comparison, 667,731 EVs were sold in the United States in 2021, a 128% increase over 2020, and sales climbed again in the first nine months of 2022. While the U.S. Postal Service’s future EV purchases are expected to only marginally increase the number of EVs sold in any given year, this move sends a market signal to other fleet owners to consider moving to electric vehicles. Additionally, lessons learned from the Postal Service’s adoption of EVs could potentially inform these fleet owners.

Press release: USPS Intends To Deploy Over 66,000 Electric Vehicles by 2028, Making One of the Largest Electric Vehicle Fleets in the Nation (U.S. Postal Service)