Leave it up to our Ellie to cover the interesting stories no one else does!

As a letter carrier in MN I am sure they did not test these in the snow! These are so low to the ground good luck getting trough snow. I get stuck so easy in the Metris van we have now!

I am a postal carrier and own a truck in Boston. My Dad lives in Florida and when I visited him. I noticed that the carriers in Florida don't have A/C that's brutal.

I get visibility, pretty sure it could have been done another way. That bumper design very clearly says that design sensibility was not a factor.

SEC to investigate a $54 million stock purchase made a day before Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced a contract for Oshkosh.

I work for usps and if I can stand up in a LLV and have AC I’m with it

Awesome video! It is the ugliest vehicle I’ve ever seen, but now I get it, once he explained about the use case and the ability to see people around the vehicle

USPS. By the way, I have difficulty communicating because I had a stroke in Broca’s area, the part of the brain that controls speech. 2/8/2021 but I lived again. (My wife helped me compose this.)

The designer of that Monstrosity should never again be allowed near an automobile in any way shape or form.

also love how they were required to make the front end low near 3ft to protect pedestrians, meanwhile here in Texas it's legal to have a 6ft hood height, wish they'd give every single truck the same treatment...not as severe at this but at least 4 or 5ft hood height MAX.

EV postal trucks will benefit the most from regen braking with all the stop and go mail box to mail box driving. Can’t wait to see these vehicles on the road

This vehicle is going to get tremendous scrutiny as it should. "The 10-year contract with Oshkosh's Defense unit makes an initial $482 million investment, but it could be worth $6 billion or more for the unit to build up to 165,000 next-generation delivery vehicles."

That explains a lot and it is a challenging service to maintain. You did it again, great job.

One of the best KZfaq videos from CES! I was surprised there were not more from the channels that focus on electric vehicles. Thanks for the detailed interview and video. 🎉

Brah, this vehicle won't be able handle my dirt rts... yikes. To low clearance, and going up the steep hills/mountains will be interesting...

It's ugly but practical and LONG overdue. The Grumman LLV's he referenced that don't have air conditioning are the USPS trucks everyone recognizes and were last built in 1994.

Very sharp corners on that shelving. I can see a few injuries from that.

I'm mostly surprised that USPS has been hauling boxes of stuff to customers all these years in non-climate controlled vehicles.

This is where feature demands over ride ANY common sense. Might as well have Toyota build a full Hybrid with two hundred mile range and 50 MPG. Scary how our government works sometimes.

Interesting that he didn't mention what I think of as the main advantage: Not having to restart an ICE at each entry to the vehicle. I don't know if they're going to be allowed to leave the trucks "on" when delivering individual bundles, but if so, it's even more convenient.

What is with the front bumper? 🇨🇦 70 mile range??? Very expensive van!

I'm a city carrier and as superior as the interior is to the LLV, this low ground clearance vehicle without AWD will perform terrible in my area.

Wow, postmen will need cushioned padding on them for all those sharp corner shelves!

They should make these have the column shifter like the explorer chassis so it is like LLV. Also will double as a place for rubber bands.

Its a good piece of work. I think you should do more of this "use case" type story. Finding and reporting on unique use cases is very interesting.

This is a perfect example of a racehorse designed by govt. committee is... a camel. The price seems reasonable at about $36K a base truck, but I bet the final price is double.

I have seen LLV with A/C, driven by supervisors. When it went to carrier duty the A/C was disabled. When a carrier moves one to 2 blocks (walking route), the A/C is useless as that amount of space would Not cool down in that period of time. Mounted routes have to have the window open to deliver the mail at curbside, the A/C will be next to useless. The LLV in winter can't keep the drivers compartment warm on mounted routes either. FYI There is No insulation in the LLV plus, with the amount of windows, where could you put it. People who compare cars to delivery vehicles need to research what they are talking about.

Lots of gov't double speak, still a step forward.

Nice job interviewing the USPS Ellie.

How will those work in zero degree weather in MI, WI, AK, VT, ME, MA, NH, etc.?

Will we be able to see for incoming vehicles like making a turn, the turn lanes that breaks away from the main road, can’t see those vehicles

That guy did a great job and really did not sugar coat anything but walk around it and define why at the same time. Just made me think the only pleasant presence of the federal government have is the post office.

My guess the windshield is $4K

They should have adopted the stand up driving position that the old milk trucks had. Just step up and drive, stop step out and deliver.

Thanks Ellie. The one thing most comments ignore is that It took the post office 6 years to get to this point, and they do not want to repeat the process as the motivations are 1.Get the old vehicles off the road. and 2. The old vehicles were designed for mail, and today the Post Office is dealing with less mail, more packages. Had they started 1 year ago, EV's would have been a more credible technology. So, the vehicle was designed around ICE and was converted to EV after individual members of Congress yelled and screamed, and Joe Biden set a target of all new government vehicles being EV's.

I carry mail on a state that receives alot of snow. Does this unit have 4 wheel drive? The newer fleets coming out cannot be chained up? Most of testing in newer vehicles is done in warmer climates.

In my area the carry the mail to each house. The truck is parked at the end of the block. All day it probably goes less than 10 miles. The range of this vehicle should be adequate. But I don’t see the advantage of this over a production van like the electric Ford Transit

Good info. I had no idea. Thank you! Rocket Ranchers got to see stacking today. It's getting exciting here. Hope to see you when the Starship flies the coop.

We were told when LLV's first rolled out they wouldn't have A/c so we wouldn't be taking long breaks during the heat (Texas). They did however have fans which blew the hot air around 😂

Up north a lot of our trucks have no heat!. 70 miles is Not enough range to help rural routes or to run packages extra hours and during very busy holidays. So whats options here turn off heat to conserve battery? Wait while vehicle charges? Obstacle avoidance on metris is terrible it beeps at you EVERY TIME you are close to a mailbox... LLV's and metris are absolutely terrible in snow and actually are a driving hazard. Sure wish and hope they take this in to account! Dont care about looks but would like something that actually would work for us

As a carrier loading this thing with 230+ parcels daily gonna take some getting use to but the a/c makes it all worth it.

So this design is made to accommodate the "5th percentile female", to ensure she can see objects that are 3' tall, without making recourse to the 360 degree camera stitched image viewer HUD that they also have in the vehicle.

Remember the old joke that a camel is a horse designed by committee? Kind of applies here. I don't understand the massively oversized bumper. Range 70 miles seems low but most of these will be stop and go in city and suburb. I wonder what this upgrade is going to cost us in increased postal rates. It isn't going to be cheap for either each vehicle or the electrical upgrade at each post office.

Great information from your interview. I had heard two years ago that they were going to buy 100,000 new trucks with only 10% electric or something like that. It is excellent to hear that they are now planning 70% EV for the first batch. I started seeing FedEx trucks that are EV in the last few months and of course there is the Rivian truck for Amazon on the way. In cities, it seems like a win-win for everyone. So much less pollution.

It is great to know it wont be coming over the pond to the UK

Nicely done, Ellie! We had questions; you got answers!

I love ev fleet progress. 165,000 of these is amazing. I wonder how the ice fleet is fueled. On site? How do the gas and oil companies profit from ev charging?

Enough talk! When are they going to be replacing the old trucks? Electric or gas! I think the postal workers have struggled long enough with the old trucks and deserve a better truck!

The LLV doesn't even have a good heater. They were very poorly designed from the start. They even forgot to put windshield defroster on the right side.

Packages are definitely going to be a problem, Amazon likes to dump parking lots full of packages at post offices for the last mile delivery... USPS needs to negotiate better contracts with their last smile deliveries with Amazon... Apparently if they don't deliver them on time they don't actually get paid by Amazon.. That's one of the reasons you see USPS trucks in neighborhoods on Sundays, they're delivering Amazon Last Mile packages... I do e-commerce from home, I'm lucky I've been able to get my local carrier on board to pick up my outgoing packages.. saving me incredible amounts of time traffic money and gasoline having to go to a location Post Office drop off.. Of course all of my packages are extremely well packaged their waterproof, they're bright they're colorful you could throw them like a frisbee.. USPS has been doing an extremely good job out of the Los Angeles area of moving my packages quickly and on time.. lickity split..

im a letter carrier in upstate ny, that vehicle wont make it in the harsh winter, its too low for the snow. definatly will get stuck on the snow all day long lol

The USPS had EV’s in the past before. The problem was the battery packs going bad mainly cause by the batteries get low on water. Hopefully they will use Lithium batteries.

Surprisingly interesting video. The default vehicle here is the Grumman that I believe is the LLV referred to... also ugly, but given that mail routes here require the carrier to leave their vehicle every house or two (boxes on house, not at curb) the starter motor for the IC engine in them takes a lot of abuse.

I remember driving the old Postal army jeeps

The design definitely will turn heads I suppose that's their idea great video Ellie currently waiting for our countries first satellite launch fingers crossed

With that huge window in hot climate like Arizona or California the A.C won’t keep up.

Good report, thanks. However, please use and instruct others in proper microphone technique in locations with high ambient noise. The hand microphone should be held straight up just under the chin so you and others speak across it. The closer the microphone is to the speaker’s mouth the better the signal-to-noise ratio. Don’t make the mistake of holding it in front of the mouth that looks bad and is susceptible to breath-popping and plosives. The higher the ambient noise level the narrower the pattern of the microphone should be used. “Shotgun“ microphones come in various lengths. The longer the mike, the narrower the pattern and its ability to reject unwanted sound. "Bad sound makes good video look bad."

Dear me... I was in Pizza Delivery for Domino's in a College-town and would CONSTANTLY be delivering for 8 to 10 hours straight in my 1973 Jeep CJ5 without either Air Conditioning OR Heat... AC is for Whimps!!! 😆

I hope they went with the, now open, Tesla charging port. They could probably save money by installing a bank of, say, 4 Tesla chargers at each post office instead of trying to use the other crappy chargers available.

Ellie, you're the best !

How does it reduce worker injury? Worker fatigue? I would like it if my carrier were as healthy as possible if for no other reason than to contribute to the Postal Services dedication to reliability.

Not an EV enthusiast, but of all the applications the USPS makes the most range, low speed and distance for their vehicles and 99% in city driving are all perfect for EV and hybrids! They will pay for themselves quickly over the 8mpg vehicles they currently have that have zero safety features, no air bags, ABS, A/C, etc, etc.

The Mercedes vans that they have been using in the interim are uncomfortable for mail carriers because the windows don't allow them to reach various height mail boxes. They have big blind spots. This vehicle is made for ease of use for the mail carriers, not for good looks. No the old mail trucks were based on a Chevy Astro van frame and a 100% Aluminum body by Grumman, an aircraft company. They didn't have AC.

But no 4wheel or all wheel drive. 70 mile range as soon as you go into locations outside of towns these things will run out of power. How well is that going to work in Montana, Kanas , Texas even places that have hills, mountains and snow?

Good Job! I like your video on this more than the others I saw.

I work at USPS and all I want is to have Bluetooth in them

Anyone who delivers mail knows this is not practical. The windshield is god awful big, which removing ice from will be a nightmare. The cargo area is half as small as the current LLV. Fitting everything during Christmas will be impossible. The air conditioning is the only perk.

If you make it a 2.0 - 2.5 liter gas four cylinder with electric motor hybrid engine design with rear wheel or all wheel drive, a smaller front windshield and bigger engine bay, and large touch screen gps infotainment system, heated seats and steering wheel, a really good a/c heating and cooling system with vents in the dash and along the center of the ceiling. Then it would be a optimal design for a mail truck. The basic shape of the rest of the mail truck seems excellent.

Platypus post van 😄 Enjoying the videos Ellie 👍🚀🐱

Will this mail truck have 4WD/AWD for snowy/icy weather? Will it also be a lot bigger & more spacious than the clunker LLVs?

Is there anything in the NGDV contract, or is anyone talking, about battery pack replacement plans for the 25 or 30 years these might be in use?

Automotive technician for the post office. I can say these vehicles will not last long. They are so low to the ground that the carriers will damage the side of the vehicle when they curb the tires to side walk. This already happens a lot with the llv. They also will not fit under parking structures. We have some routes that require vehicles to go under parking structure. Also post office will need to invest in new low profile lifts to service these vehicles. A lot off shops in the post office have the old hydraulic lifts that are out dated. They should of gone with something different, but like always with post office they go with the lowest bidder for these contracts and get the cheapest vehicles.

As always great story Elli keep up the good work

They should’ve just modernized the LLV. Those vehicles are a beast. Very maneuverable and rugged. This thing will not do for most real world USPS purposes unless in a big city.

as with NASA, it's government agencies that need to take the lead like this for fleet vehicles to be replaced with EVs, because the gov't, being non-profit by definition, will have to build the charging infrastructure regardless of the price.

“Planning on getting a charging station in 1st” yet none have been installed or planned for that matter. I work for the post office which is a typical government entity, 3 steps behind society.

So now not only will California not have electricity to charge their electric vehicles they won't have US Postal Service to deliver the mail

First impressions....Ellie, you were great here! LOL ok seriously (I was serious...you are great here!)....on the new truck? I'm not impressed. Maybe I'll change my opinion when I see one in person. I had no idea those old LLV's didn't have AC. It gets pretty roasty here in Texas. Kudos even more to our awesome USPS workers! I have seen Amazon's new EV from Rivian and that one looks much nicer, but I think they had larger requirements on the truck size, where as the new NGDV is supposed to be about the same size footprint as the LLV's. Look forward to looking at one of these (from the outside of course) soon.

They should have looked at the design of the Canoo van on how they solved visibility with glass front panels.

Hopefully it has a magnetic displacement field which alerts the driver when they think the truck is empty but it’s not.

Some station and apt buildings don't have the height to fit these new vehicles in. I guessing if the stations don't have the clearance to park these vehicles they're not getting them for now.

Thank you Ellie for this review can't wait to see one of these in real life

OH MY GAWD. . . . When the video first started, I was reading through the comments, and thinkin, "i don't understand, why is everyone knocking the design so much. Looks like a fairly standard delivery truck" and then 2:34 happened, and I saw the full view of the front grille. What the F*CK were they thinking?! It looks like they based the front hood off of the cartoon character "Duck-man"! That is a duck bill if ever I saw one. This is an abomination. Also, great reporting Ellie! I've always enjoyed seeing videos at car shows and demo areas, so this is great. And yea, that guy wasn't kidding, a lot of the delivery drivers trucks (UPS, Fedex, etc) don't have air conditioning installed, that's why they drive with their windows open. The reason (at least according to what I've heard) is that because they make so many frequent stops and starts, it would be too hard on the AC to keep trying to equalize the temperature, so they just opted to have it removed in those as a cost savings.

Most of the time when the power grid goes down from hurricane or ice storm it doesn't completely stop mail delivery. I wonder how that might change with a full EV fleet.

I've never seen one before. I've seen pics of them, and they look weird, nothing like the Grumman USPS Delivery Truck. The windscreen is the weirdest part of the vehicle. Whereas the Grumman LLV's windscreen was angled more toward the driver and possible front passenger, this is more vertical.

Wow, very interesting. Thanks for making this video.

The USPS is an ideal case study for EV's. Every day the trucks leave, travel a set distance, then return to the same place, then spend the night waiting for the next day. They can also do managed charging by slowing down the rate on the trucks that don't need so much in favor of the trucks that are really low. This will work well since they all will be leaving at the same time.

The rear roofline should slant towards rear, giving weather cover rear loading/uploading.

Wher are the Amazon dog food packages are going fit?

Would love to see what they can do in case of a fire. Can they extinguish these electric vehicles. Are firefighters specially trained to fight electric related fires. 🤔

The current LLV trucks they have now are 30 years old

The electrical grid cannot support charging all of these electric vehicles unless they have some major money dumped into new systems.

Send them to California 😎 Great Content. Your asking the right Questions PS Nice Boots. Texas Made?

1:03 Sonar is very important safety feature. 🙂

Its too tall and too large all around for out the window mail deliveries. So the LLV will still be used unfortunately. Rural routes arent evaluated for a nearly 100% dismount rate on out the window routes. For package deliveries this thing is perfect

EV, as it is now, won't be very useful for rural route carriers and especially not very useful for highway contract route (used to be known as star route carriers) carriers. USPS tried to tell us that we did NOT need 4 wheel drive, needed a white car with a quarter inch red line, a quarter inch blue line, U.S. MAIL between those lines and to wash our cars every day. My folks had highway contract routes and we did need 4 wheel drive and there were many times where the cars/pick-ups did NOT get washed every other week let alone every day. That directive kind of went away after a bit. I think our past assistant post master might have had a little bit of influence once he went on the more rural of the highway contract routes - the ones with trail roads or the carrier having to drive through cattle pastures. Where we live is cattle country and very different dirt road conditions such as more clay like dirt to more sandy conditions. All I do know is that after that assistant post master went on those very rural country routes that we received notice that we did NOT have to have a white car with the blue and red lines and U.S. MAIL and that we could have 4 wheel drive if needed. Which was nice since we highway contract route carriers have to bid on those routes and we supply our own vehicles as well as fuel and repair expenses which we try to figure into the bids, but lowest bid wins the contract so some low bidders can end up losing money in the end run. One day I had three flat tires, one being a blowout on the sidewall. Luckily I was still close enough to town that I could go back and get that tire replaced so when I had the second flat tire I had a spare that I used. BUT that day - one new tire and one repaired tire - really messed up with what we earned that day

Great job Wonder a company that has never made an EV good t the contract. Maybe it was who approved the contract

will looks like stamps will be going way up to cover the cost of the new EV vehicles

What this poor USPS spokesperson is trying not to say is our boss Dejoy has shares in Oshkosh Defence and has foisted this monstrosity on us. The fuel version has worse mpg than the current 30year old trucks and Oshkosh has come out and said they haven't a clue on how to make the electric ones. Boondoggle pure and simple. Not Oshkosh or USPS fault it's down to one man.

Where do they plan to charge them? Many offices are 100 years old no inside storage. It’s setting up for failure.