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  • Trump transition weighs plan to cancel USPS contracts to build large EV fleet
    Postal service plans to spend billions on EV chargers and roughly 66,000 new trucks Contract cancellation likely part of sweeping executive order on EVs

Dec 6 (Reuters) - Donald Trump’s transition team is considering canceling the U.S. Postal Service’s contracts to electrify its delivery fleet, as part of a broader suite of executive orders targeting electric vehicles, according to three sources familiar with the plans.

The move, which could be unveiled in the early days of Trump’s administration that begins on Jan. 20, is in line with Trump’s campaign promises to roll back President Joe Biden’s efforts to decarbonize U.S. transportation to fight climate change – an agenda Trump has said is unnecessary and potentially damaging to the economy.

Reuters has previously reported that Trump is planning to kill a $7,500 consumer tax credit for electric vehicle purchases, and plans to roll back Biden’s stricter fuel-efficiency standards.

The sources told Reuters that Trump’s transition team is now reviewing how it can unwind the postal service’s multibillion-dollar contracts, including with Oshkosh (OSK.N), and Ford (F.N) for tens of thousands of battery-driven delivery trucks and charging stations.

Oshkosh shares fell by roughly 5% to 105.65 per share after the Reuters report.

    • frezik
      1·
      2 days ago

      I think you’re under some misconceptions about how this has happened. The old trucks are completely non-viable. Way past their expected lifespan. They all need to go. If there was a time to phase out the old trucks, it was about 20 years ago.

      The new trucks come in EV and gas flavors. The EV version only has a 70 mile range, but that’s plenty for many city/suburban routes. So they’re putting them in where they make sense and everything else gets the gas version. Over time, a longer range EV version could take over the vast majority of routes, if not all of them.

        • frezik
          1·
          2 days ago

          They got those because the Gremlins are falling apart. They’re not likely to be scrapped. They’re probably going to be sold at auction a few years from now.

          USPS doesn’t like selling the old Gremlins at auction because they’re sensitive about anyone impersonating a mail carrier (though a few have slipped through into private hands). Nobody else operates them, so any Gremlin looks like a mail carrier. A Metris, though, is just another van, and a quick paint job to remove the USPS logos is all they need.