US Postal Service blew $3 billion on electric mail trucks – and has almost nothing to show for it.

Photo Above - If you've seen this truck, please contact the government department of waste and fraud . . .

Who’s making those electric mail trucks? “Oshkosh Defense?” Never heard of them? Never mind . . . you’re unlikely to actually see one of the new mail trucks in the wild, either. (link below)

In 2021, as part of the hilariously misleading “Inflation Reduction Act”, the Biden administration signed a $6 billion dollar deal with Oshkosh Defense to replace the entire US Postal Service fleet with EV trucks. $3 billion has been paid out so far. How are we doing?

1 – of the 165,000 vehicles scheduled, only 600 are in operation today.

2 – Oshkosh built a giant factory to supply the new trucks. But the factory only produces one truck per day. Not a typo – one truck per day.

3 – 14,000 charging stations have been purchased, and 6,600 are installed. That’s 10 charging stations already for each working Oshkosh EV mail truck.

4 – the US Postal Service lost $10 billion in 2024, just from routine operations. This does not include the EV truck fiasco.

5 – the USPS also bought 8,000 Ford E-Transit vans because of the slow delivery of the Oshkosh trucks. 6,000 Fprd EV's sit idle, and have never been used.

Who the heck is Oshkosh Defense? They’re based in Wisconsin, and mostly build army non-combat vehicles to deliver supplies to troops. They have 15,000 workers. This is a REALLY big defense contractor, which might explain how the mail truck contract was steered to them. Wisconsin Senators Tammy Baldwin (democrat) and Ron Johnson (republican) may have further insight. I hope we’re not going to find out that this contract was in return for Tammy and Ron’s support of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

At this point I would respectfully ask that President Trump NOT commission a new fleet of “Trump Class Battleships”, which are certain to become an even worse boondoggle. They would probably take decades to build and require 10 support ships each. Instead, let’s figure out what’s going on with the Oshkosh and Ford E-Transit mail trucks. They’re urgently needed to save the planet from global warming, and also to reduce inflation!

I’m just sayin’ . . .

USPS blew $3 billion on electric trucks – and has almost nothing to show for it

Oshkosh Corporation - Wikipedia

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ArishMell · 70-79, M

What struck me about the image is that the vehicle is right-hand drive.

I take it that is normal for US Postal Service vans, so the driver is not alighting and boarding in the roadway, and can deliver to roadside boxes in the way shown?

E-vans are becoming common in the UK, and my local Royal Mail fleet includes a few. I don't know their make, but do know Volkswagen and Ford both build 1-tonne e-vans for the UK market, so with right-hand drive. So if Oshkosh can't deliver the vehicles...? I appreciate why the USPS would want the Oshkosh, being built in America by an American company, but Ford is at least US-owned.

As for Oshkosh...

Oshkosh Corporation is a purpose-driven innovator, transforming industries with cutting-edge technology and sustainable solutions that move the world forward.

We know that because it says so on its publicity, so it must be right. I've no idea what that sentence means, though. Has its author?

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What does Trump mean by "battleship"? The term was normally used for the enormous gun-ships whose zenith was World War Two, and now obsolete although I understand the US Navy still has one or two in commission. They are useful for pounding coastal installations, but little else, and a couple of torpedoes will send them under - killing hundreds of men with them.

So perhaps Trump really means a modern frigate or destroyer, as long as his is the class name. I've a bizarre mental image of his likeness in carved oak on the prow, as an 18C-style figurehead.

Modern fighting ships in navies around the worlds are much smaller, lighter, and armed with homing-missiles not those 1940s big guns. Those weapons could probably not be manufactured nowadays, the equipment and expertise having been lost.

They also carry far smaller crews than the capital ships needed, perhaps 250 compared to over a 1000; which is a blessing in a grim way, by a far smaller death-toll when sunk by the enemy.

However, unless basically copying an existing design no new warship can be designed and built within at least a decade, partly because the propulsion, weapons, communications and own-defence systems evolve so rapidly that many specifications and design modifications are almost inevitable.

It is though important to consider that China is expanding its navy considerably, and although Russi has scrapped much of its Cold War submarine fleet, has been re-arming its services.

hippyjoe1955 · 70-79, M

@ArishMell Russia has some very stealthy subs that are driving NATO insane. They are also armed with some weapons that NATO can not counter or defend against. With the advent of the hypersonic missile I very much suspect that surface ships have become obsolete since they serve only as floating targets.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@hippyjoe1955 She does, yes. It could well be that their scrapping of the older submarines was not a "peace divident" effect but a matter of simple obsolescence.

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, the American naval architects come up with to satisfy their President, but he'll be just an ordinary US citizen long before the first are afloat.

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ArishMell · 70-79, M

@wildbill83 EV development has been very rapid and most of the early problems have been sorted out so there is no technical reason for the USPS not to be buying them, but in this case there may simply be large supply difficulties, such as insufficient materials, slowing the scheme. The service cannot be expected to replace all its fleet rapidly, all over the country.

Regarding the media's reporting of the warships, I formed the impression it was President Trump or one of his ministers who used the word "battleship", and that was what was quoted. I do not think anyone in the Pentagon or the DoD was seriously pulling out drawings dated 1935.

Oh, they won't have big guns, not least because those and their ammunition take a lot of room on board, and several men to operate each gun, and their range is much shorter than that of a missile. More likely one or two 4.5-inch rapid-fire weapons operated from the ship's bridge or control-room, for close-in defence.

Also of course, missiles can be steered. However sophisticated the fire-control once the shell has left the muzzle it takes a purely ballistic trajectory, not a controlled course. Which does make them effective against fixed targets like harbours, but that places the ship dangerously close to the enemy.

Using ships in flotillas ("wolfpacks") is hazardous tactically; and perhaps another reason the large-scale naval battles are a thing of the past. Despite modern ships' advanced sonar to detect enemy submarines they are not so good at fighting off submarines, and a flotilla presents plenty of targets within a compact area. The flotilla may need an underwater shield of "hunter-killer" submarines.

I think in the end, any major future war we all hope will never happen, between major powers, would be very different from even the sort of attritional fighting planned for in the Cold War, and as we see now in Ukraine, Sudan and elsewhere. It may not even entail very much fire-power.

I think the term "wolfpack" was from World War Two's German Kriegsmarine, but even then was not very accurate, perhaps more propaganda than reality. This was because although large numbers of U-boats went out into the North Atlantic to attack the merchant convoys and any Allied naval ships, mainly in a region out of range of aircraft from both coasts, they normally scattered and operated independently.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@ArishMell so far there are no renderings for the trump-class battleships. at least that i can find.

typically a battleship is larger and more heavily armored than a cruiser. the world war 2 battleships where retrofitted with cruise missiles before they were decomissioned, but their main attraction was being able to stand 25 miles offshore and pound something with (relatively) cheap 14 inch artillery shells, even if it was a hit or miss proposition. as much a terror weapon as an actual threat.

hippyjoe1955 · 70-79, M

@SusanInFlorida The Battle ship reached its Zenith with the British who would engage in what was known an 'gun boat diplomacy'. Some region of the world would get uppity and Britain would sail one of its gun boats aka Battle Ships int to said regions nearest harbour and scare all the natives into submission. The era of the Battle Ship ended with the sinking of IJN's Yamato. A concept long since over shadowed by the Air Craft Carrier. Sadly the Air Craft Carrier's days are numbered with the advent of the hypersonic missile. Look at what happened in the spat between the US and Yemen. Now the Air Craft Carrier is little more that a floating targets with a bunch of really expensive airplanes on it all of which can be sunk by a couple of hypersonic missiles of which China and Russia have and the US and NATO do not have. Right now there is no known defence against the hypersonics and they pack one heck of a wallop.