Sustainability leaders are furious at the United States Postal Service for dragging its feet on ditching gas-powered mail trucks and other vehicles — and the agency doesn’t seem to be seriously considering non-automotive mail delivery options, either.
In a Jan. 6 notice in the Federal Register, USPS re-committed to its plan to replace as little as just 10 percent of its 231,000 aging delivery trucks with electric vehicles over the next 10 years, citing the logistical and financial challenges of keeping EV batteries charged along sometimes-lengthy routes.
That time frame would narrowly avoid the deadline set by President Biden last month when he issued an executive order obligating all federal agency fleets to go electric by 2035. And it would also mean that 90 percent of the largest government-owned fleet in the country would be powered by fossil fuels for decades to come — and that most of the popular pedestrian-friendly truck designs the agency unveiled last year would still run on gas.
Have sustainability leaders ever driven a mail route?