The Postal Service in March finished testing prototypes of trucks for its next-generation delivery vehicle program, the agency’s chief said publicly this week. But the closely followed competition’s winner has not been announced.
The agency expects to issue a request for production by early fall, Postmaster General Megan Brennan said during a congressional hearing Tuesday on the agency’s poor financial health.
“We are currently analyzing the results of the testing that was over a multimonth period in different topographies and different climates,” she said. “And those results will help inform the production request going forward.”
The next step, the contract for actual production of the vehicles, could be worth up to $6.3 billion. But production is likely to be incremental – 12,000 mail trucks a year – and take place over seven years. That’s based on the agency’s prototype request. The agency also asked for battery-electric and plug-in hybrid powertrains options.