USPS' long-awaited new mail truck makes its debut to rave reviews from carriers
USPS' long-awaited new mail truck makes its debut to rave reviews from carriers
The Postal Service’s new delivery vehicles aren’t going to win a beauty contest. They're tall and ungainly, with outsize windshields, thick bumpers and duck-bill hoods.
The Postal Service’s new delivery vehicles aren’t going to win a beauty contest. They’re tall and ungainly. The windshields are vast. Their hoods resemble a duck bill. Their bumpers are enormous.
“You can tell that (the designers) didn’t have appearance in mind,” postal worker Avis Stonum said.
Odd appearance aside, the first handful of Next Generation Delivery Vehicles that rolled onto postal routes in August in Athens, Georgia, are getting rave reviews from letter carriers accustomed to cantankerous older vehicles that lack modern safety features and are prone to breaking down — and even catching fire.
Within a few years, the fleet will have expanded to 60,000, most of them electric models, serving as the Postal Service’s primary delivery truck from Maine to Hawaii.
The new trucks also feature something common in most cars for more than six decades: air conditioning. And that’s key for drivers in the Deep South, the desert Southwest and other areas with scorching summers.
“I promise you, it felt like heaven blowing in my face,” Stonum said of her first experience working in an air-conditioned truck.
Good.
Honestly, as replacements for their legacy, these look spot on. Modern versions of what came before. I'm so glad the postal workers are receiving new, safer equipment.
I think they’re adorable. They should let us buy them.
I mean, sure, it's no looker, but if it makes mail carriers' lives easier then that's a win. Will probably be 'iconic' in a decade or two.
Plus the hood looks designed for pedestrian and collision safety, which is nice
We should mandate that all large trucks, including pickups, have hoods like these. Such hoods would save lives, and requiring them on large vehicles would undoubtedly lead to newer, smaller sized pickup designs that wouldn't be required to use them. Win-win
Sort of weird looking by current standards. I don't know how long it will be before I see one of these. I live in a rural area, and our local USPS seems to use personal vehicles I guess? I don't really know for sure, but they don't drive the standard white and blue box that USPS drivers had when I lived in more urban/suburban settings.
same where I am - delivery vehicle is an ancient, busted right-hand drive jeep. I don't imagine I'll be seeing one of these new vehicles any time soon
Mpg on those old ones is like 9. Using those things in a rural area is just a waste of money. $3 to deliver to less than 10 customers for gas alone?
It would be hard to develop something that's not an improvement to the absolute shitboxes they were using.
If lurking in the USPS subreddit for a few years had taught me anything, it's that some really love the LLVs and some just hate the platypus that's replacing it, as it was often called.
Really happy we are upgrading these finally, the previous vehicles had aged out and put postal employees in danger.
Huh, in my area recently they've been using just normal Mercedes vans with the Mercedes logo replaced by the USPS logo so I had assumed that was just the new standard USPS vehicle now but I guess not, interesting.
I think it's cute!
Well it’s ugly as shit but it’s super functional so I really can’t complain. Some people thought the AC-130 was ugly, fat and slow till it shelled the fuck out of them
So this is what happens when a Fiat Multipla develops into its final form in all its glorious ugliness...
Belcher-ass transportation mode.
It looks like the car that SpongeBob would drive if that were a thing that happened in reality. I love it so much.
We just got a van in my area a few years back, wonder if this'll replace it?
Nah, they use vans for more package dense areas. They are rolling out electric versions of those too eventually.
oh fuck what a beauty. I want one of these in cozy coupe theme but the old one without the eyes. kids these days have it rough.
Man look at the 5head on that truck
Damn look at the storage space they have
Glad to hear they're mostly electric. A mail truck is an ideal use a for EV, it ought to save the USPS a ton of money