That dilemma stems from newly proposed USPS rules that seek to comply with an executive order President Donald Trump signed this spring to crack down on mail-in voting. If courts let the order stand, it would give the federal government an unprecedented role in elections — and could put even more voter data in the hands of Trump officials searching for supposed election fraud.
The replacement procurement process was started in January 2015, before Trump. And the contract itself was signed by Biden in 2021.
Do you have anything to back up the NGDV being awful? Because from everything I can find that’s not the case. They’re much safer (airbags, anti-lock brakes, and crumple zones), and have Air Conditioning. The commentary I can find from actual USPS workers seems pretty positive. Most of the complaints are more from armchair redditors about the design, which is obviously secondary to the utility for this type of use case. Or they are complaints about the 10/90 BEV/ICE procurement split decided by the Trump admin, citing cost… even though the price difference was only about $3 Billion. Not actually complaints about the NGDV itself being a bad replacement for the LLV.
The NGDV uses modern components, has modern safety features (the old LLV basically had none), and it’s available with both an ICE and BEV powertrain, and the ICE option can be swapped out later to the BEV, it’s not stuck being a gas powered vehicle forever.
The old Grumman LLV has needed a replacement for decades. Anecdotally, I had two spontaneously catch fire in front on our house several years ago, about a month or so apart from failed components, likely due to age. Maintaining them cost a fortune because of that.
Mail delivery is a near perfect use case for a BEV. Nearly identical routes every day, less than 70 miles total, with known time and distances. And long times of non-use overnight to charge the batteries, no fast charge needed.
Mortal Kombat announcer: FACTUALITY