Do they love them because they’re electric or because they finally got a new truck?
Because they have Air Conditioning.
The thing they should have had for the last 40 years. With record breaking heat year after year it should be hazard pay without ac
Airbags, Anti lock Breaks, and hopefully leg room for non-midgets are probably bonuses too.
Dude, a break is something you take between shifts. A brake is something that slows you down. They’re not the same word.
You should be aware by now that that’s a pretty notable slur.
Actually, I didn’t know. Never heard it used in an offensive context before today. But I’ll edit my comment just the same.
Now I wonder what this notable slur is
Instantaneous torque, I’m sure offers dramatic improvement over the previous ICE trucks.
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Not only do [the old trucks] only get 9 miles per gallon, they’re also noisy, smelly (I have to close my window every day when the mail truck comes around), have no air conditioning, hard to stand up in, and their only safety feature is mirrors that constantly fall out of alignment. AP also points out that nearly 100 LLVs caught fire last year – a common event when it comes to internal combustion vehicles.
I’m not against the swap to EV but that is one Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs looking ass truck.
It’s ugly af. Was that a project requirement or something? It looks like it has a fucking underbite lol.
From an article I read last week, it’s an accessibility thing. Front window needs to be low enough for short carriers, and the vehicle needs to be tall enough for a tall carrier to stand in.
Looks silly, but pretty well thought out.
It’s ugly af. Was that a project requirement or something? It looks like it has a fucking underbite lol.
It is, but its pure function over form. If you want the whole story on this here’s a well done 13 minute youtube video: USPS Oshkosh NGDV Postal Van - Ugly by Design
Short version for the ugly:
- drivers need to stand up at full height inside for ease of use
- drivers, when seated, need to see very close to the ground what is in front of them
- drivers are not all the same torso height. Men are usually taller than women so you need a really tall windshield for very tall seated drivers, and very sharp and short hood for very short drivers.
Its ugly, but is a very VERY functional design. I’d rather mail carriers are comfortable in their ride than feeling stylish.
The unusual look is to make it easier to see around the front of the vehicle, which is especially important if you are stopping and starting.
The original design didn’t have a hood and looked a but more like a mini bus. Can’t remember why they added the hood, but it was a combination of different things including not having a flat front that increases the chance of killing people vs letting them roll up on a short hood. I think wheel placement was another part so the side door to get in an out could be closer to the ground.
I kinda love how ugly they are in a utilitarian kind of way.
It might also be for a radiator to cool the battery and/or act as a heat pump for the AC/heat. At least, I hope they are using a heatpump.
Ditto. Like, I think it’ll become iconic in the same way the LLV is ugly-iconic. I just like it when government stuff so obviously prioritizes function over form.
Mmm… Toriyama cars.
I love it they look like ducks 🦆
They’re totally going to have to do that wrap.
I’d dig that so much 😁
The one thing I wish they did with these things is make the roof out of solar panels.
These things are going to spend most days sitting outside in direct sunlight. They have nice big flat roofs which makes them pretty perfect to throw on solar panels. You likely would not need much charge infrastructure for the new vehicles and you’d have cut the ownership cost down even more significantly (especially in states with high electrical rates).
Regardless, these things are a no-brainer even without solar on all the vehicles. These are low speed vehicles with dedicated routes and loads of stop/go action. There’s not a more clear place to use an EV.
Solan panels on vehicles sounds like a great idea but the physics makes it a stupid gimmick.
How so? Is it that they aren’t efficient enough to be worth the materials it’s made from?
It’s cheaper to put a light roof on a car, buy the same area of solar cells, set them up to charge a battery, and charge the car off that battery, than it is to buy a custom, toughened, solar cell the area of the roof.
Plus, you don’t have to haul around the extra weight at the worst location for weight in a vehicle.
Power to weight ratio favors permanent fixed installations. A car roof is far too small to make a useful amount of energy.
Power to weight doesn’t matter as we are talking about using a solar panel instead of a roof. There’s no added weight. The car will already have inbuilt inverters so the only real weight add is the wiring. But also, this is a postal vehicle which will have large swings in weight anyways. A couple of extra pounds doesn’t make a difference here.
Further, this isn’t a car, which has a much smaller surface area. These things have about 10 square meters of flat roof. That’s a peak output of ~3kW. (realistically, probably closer to 1.5kW average throughout a day) which translates into 12kWh of charge in any given day. Roughly 10% of the battery capacity could be restored daily.
For large vehicles, like delivery vehicles and busses, the math on making the roof out solar panels instead of steel changes.
A roof only needs to be a thin piece of sheet metal, weighing somewhere in the neighborhood of 1-2lbs per square foot
Most solar panels are going to weigh somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-4lbs per square foot. So is likely the panel would weigh 2-4 times as much as just a plain metal roof, plus possibly a metal roof under it and/or additional framing to attach the panels to, so power to weight does absolutely come into play.
That comes in at an additional 400lbs on a vehicle that weighs 6,670 lbs if you assume the maximal weight of the panels and the need for a metal roof anyways. That extra 6% weight just doesn’t matter. 6% losses range for 12% free charging seems like a worthy tradeoff to me. (and again, this is the maximal value).
That extra 6% weight just doesn’t matter.
LOL weight is incredibly important. Automakers would kill puppies for a 6% weight reduction.
6% weight increase doesn’t necessarily mean a 6% efficiency loss, it’s not a simple linear relationship like that. Depending on the power of the motor and a few other factors that 6% weight increase could mean a huge hit to efficiency.
You also have to clean them constantly in this application, I imagine.
I guess they could make some kind of windshield wiper for the solar panels.
Given the fashion for giving vehicle models latinate masculine names like Camino and Montero, they missed a trick by not naming the postal vehicle the Tristero.
The first batch is possibly arriving in one city. (Pics or it didn’t happen, of course. AP article delivers.) Well, that’s nice… at least they actually exist?! (That’s a bit of a low bar.)
I’m worried it’s going to take another decade or three for the trucks to actually arrive in the numbers needed. Hopefully the USPS can survive our deplorable politics until then. They are invaluable for small businesses and keeping all mail couriers competitive.
They do look like ducks! 🦆
you can tell they didn’t have appearance in mind.
…and they shouldn’t. It’s a government service vehicle, form and function over aesthetics.
They could’ve bought a fleet of <s3xy> EVs off the shelf but they would’n’t’ve been fit for service and more expensive per mile/year of use.
I’m glad your text was that big I almost couldn’t read it
Thanks! I was actually cleaning up my comment (and fully RTFA) when I saw that AP link in middle there. Actual photos, great to see.
They couldn’t use an actual photo instead of whatever that edited trash is lol
Judging by the AP report linked in that post-
It’s the same thing.
Look like a duck.
Does it quack like a duck?
There are car horns that sound like ducks, so maybe.
That windshield looks very expensive to replace, pass it on to the taxpayers!
USPS is self-funded through postage and other services they provide. They did receive $50 billion from an emergency funding bill back in '22, but that also removed a hefty, arbitrary load: back in 2006, legislation was passed that forced the USPS into pre-fund retirement plans for the next 75 years. The emergency funding bill lifted that requirement and gave emergency funding to the USPS under the condition that the USPS adopt changes listed in the bill to further address funding shortfalls and become solvent again.
The people paying for USPS windshield replacements are effectively paying customers, much like how toll roads are supposed to fund their own upkeep by charging for its use.
It looks like a pretty typical windshield, except mounted close to vertical. Last I knew the USPS was running at a profit, except for the bribed politicians making it a law they need to fund pensions way into the future, that is.
It seems odd to turn to Oshkosh to build these. I wonder how they compare to Amazon’s Rivian vans.
I’d guess there’s a bit of MIC lobbying and chicanery afoot here. Like, it does seem like Oshkosh makes some good vehicles, but there’s always pressure to support defense companies when government bidding happens.
Please note that this is completely baseless speculation on my part. I’m an idiot on the internet that knows fuck-all about shit.
I mean… the previous ones were by Northop Grumman?
Is it really a shock that the US turns to defense companies for this kind of thing?
True, but I don’t think it’s had any link to the aerospace company for a very long time, right?
There was a time when these were built by Jeep/AMC motors. People used to buy these used at auction and drive them after they were retired. And electric delivery vehicles are already built by companies like Rivian and Ford, though I don’t know what the cost difference is.
I would think building a “bespoke” vehicle for USPS would result in more expensive service parts. But I don’t know what kind of service contracts are included with these.
The Grumman LLVs were “bespoke” and have been being used since the 80’s??
Yes, and before that they were a general jeep vehicle built by built by Jeep/AMC. They sold the contract to LTV in 1980.
And talking about the US prior to the military industrial complex and post military industrial complex are two different things.
Post WWII its been a revolving door of “defense” company executives having high positions in government.
Remember VP Dick Cheney, former CEO of Halliburton? Remember Halliburton getting no-bid contracts to rebuild Iraq?
My point is: this is the norm now.
Is it stupid? Yes. It is a result of the growth of the power of the military industrial complex? Also yes. Is it what you ought to expect based on past behavior? Fucking obviously.
Bespoke in that they were essentially S-10 pickups with different bodies.
Rivian doesn’t have the production capacity or the knowledge of navigating federal-level bureaucracy. I’d also rather it go to Rivian but I understand why they didn’t. I doubt that even Tesla could do it.
Is the rollout happening that quickly? How many are they building in a year? I also can’t imagine a company used to building MRAPs can churn vehicles out faster than a conventional automaker…
“The BEV variant has an estimated range of 70 mi (110 km) and a computed consumption of 1.34 kW⋅h/mi (25.2 mpg‑e). Although using the air conditioner was not expected to affect the range, using the heater was expected to reduce range by up to half. Based on the typical distance driven, it was assumed that only 20% of the battery state of charge would be used each day for most NGDVs; analysis of USPS mail carrier routes demonstrated the all-electric variant’s range could accommodate 95% of all routes.”
have to go elsewhere for vehicle specs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oshkosh_NGDV?wprov=sfla1Is this not the car from Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs?
I’m actually shocked at the inefficiency of the electric powertrain tbh. An F-150 Lightning gets twice the distance per wh, a Model Y is quadruple. I’m not entirely sure if it’s just simply the size, but the lightning has a comparable gvwr. Just seems weird to me
So, I was curious and did some digging on the old LLV. Apparently it has a 13.5 gallon tank, and the vehicle is rated at 17mpg, but in actual use it gets more like 8-10mpg. So taking the worst case of 8, that’s about 100 mile range, so the NGDV isn’t really all that much worse. I’m guessing that’s going to cover the majority of routes, with the few outliers being covered by the gas powered versions.
Maybe these people are actually reporting the real world mileage with AC turned on and constant stops to deliver mail, as opposed to Ford who is financially incentivized to exaggerate mileage in optimal conditions.
I wonder how they calculated the range. If it’s representative of the real world drive cycle these will experience, the estimate might not be too far off. A postal route is constant low speed stop and go. Regen is much more effective at higher speeds, so they’re probably dumping most of their kenetic energy to hear via friction brakes. Suspect their drive cycle is going to be something like an endless cycle of 25 kw acceleration, rest, 25 kw acceleration, rest, etc.
I bet it’s this exactly. Cars get more efficient metrics on highway vs city start and stop. If the vehicle ONLY starts and stops it must be terrible, even if these have regen brakes.
I mean how many miles a day are most routes? Why order bigger specs if you don’t need them? I can’t imagine most carriers go more than 20 mi a day. I am curious though, I’m sure someone’s crunched the numbers on it.
Thank god because I live in AZ and felt bad they had no AC. I even had one break down on the street as the engine overheated the driver didn’t know what to do. But it sucks the driver was worried about making deliveries on time. I told the driver not to drive that car cause it’s not safe
Hey American modern pick up truck heads. Notice how normal the bonnet is? Notice how you can SEE enough to not run people over? This is a true utility vehicle. Look how massive this bad boy is without being a death machine 👍
It’s also absolutely adorable 😂
(which is probably why they’d hate it 🙄)
I have a mini cargo van as my everyday car that can move quite a bit of cargo, but I also bottom out if I go on a road that’s too bumpy.
The family truck has the clearance to go off the pavement.
A video which puts all the arguments better than I ever could: https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo
But the notion you can only have high clearance by making your hood so massive to the point you can’t see your child as you run them over in your own driveway, doesn’t make sense.
I’d strongly encourage you to give the video a go.
These trucks are now infesting my streets to (Australia) to a lesser degree. It’s an arms race that really needs to be stopped. I hope you consider some of the points made in the video.
but it doesn’t have enough sharp edges i feel like. what if i want to slice a kid in half?
You’re right. Literally unplayable
My dogs know the sound of Mailman Mike’s truck when it’s a couple blocks away. They go outside to get a treat from him every day when he drives by. I’m guessing they won’t do this once he switches to a quiet EV.
Electric motors gave a quiet high pitched whine that will be extremely easy for dogs to hear and will the mailman is coming once they catch on.
So glad to see the upgrade actually has quality of life features for the drivers beyond not needing to breathe in exhaust fumes all day!
Omg, I love them.
And if that is not a Trucky McTruckyface I dont know what is.
