The United States Postal Service (USPS) announced today that it has awarded a contract for 9,250 new battery electric, left-hand-drive delivery vehicles to Ford. The contract is part of the government service’s $9.6 billion plan to electrify its fleet.
The USPS announced that the vehicles it gets from Ford will be E-Transit electric delivery vans, and it expects to start receiving them in December 2023. The vehicles will be produced in Kansas City, Missouri.
In addition to the new electric vehicles, the USPS also announced that it has awarded contracts to three suppliers for a total of 14,000 charging stations, to support the roll-out of the EVs. It plans to start building its charging infrastructure at a minimum of 75 locations in the next 12 months.
Read: USPS Plans To Operate 66,000 EVs By 2028
“We are moving forward with our plans to simultaneously improve our service, reduce our cost, grow our revenue, and improve the working environment for our employees,” said Louis DeJoy, Postmaster General. “Electrification of our vehicle fleet is now an important component of these initiatives.”
The USPS says that the electric infrastructure and the vehicles will be deployed to post offices based on a variety of factors, mainly the suitability of left-hand-drive electric vehicles to specific routes. It has not yet, however, finalized the rollout plan.
The USPS announced plans to start electrifying its fleet last year. In addition to a total of 21,000 commercial off-the-shelf delivery vehicles, such as the Ford E-Transit, it also said that it would be purchasing purpose-built, “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles,” the contract for which was awarded to Oshkosh Defense.
The USPS’s total investments in new vehicles is expected to reach $9.6 billion, which will include $3 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act.
“We have developed a strategy that mitigates both cost and risk of deployment – which enable execution on this initiative to begin now,” said DeJoy. “I again want to thank the Administration officials and members of Congress who have assisted us in this initiative.”
