The health or safety was never a big concern, much less comfort. One carrier put a thermometer in his llv, it registered 20 degrees hotter than outside.

​@fredbecker607 yes, I bring one during the hottest parts of the summer and I've seen it top out around 135 in the cab.

You're not going to like this but misuse of A/C in a vehicle can make you sick and possibly even kill you. I know because of doing deliveries in Florida. I would strongly suggest using powerful fans and open windows instead. The reason is because of getting in & out the vehicle frequently. hotcoldhotcoldhotcoldhotcold, that is what will kill you.

@@kmg501 The AC does not necessarily need to be set to "cold" - in many cases 75 degrees would still be a massive improvement. Besides, many carriers are already driving vehicles (ford transit, etc) that have AC. And the same is true of other carriers.

@@kmg501 Citation needed.

All that said, I hope it doesn't suck to drive 20+ minutes down the freeway at 75MPH...

THANK YOU! The sheer idea that these vehicles should service anything other than functionality is insane. People lampooned the old design when it came out too. It's now iconic, and for It's time, it met the very functional needs more than any other vehicle.

I think it would function better if it were to use a shortened transit bus platform. Cab forward design, excellent visibility, more package space for the same wheelbase, and it's incredibly easy to get in and out of and stand up in

It's nice when things are pleasant to look at in addition to being functional. 🤷‍♂️

If anything, this appearance will make the vehicle look more friendly to pedestrians and other vehicles.

Yeah, which is actually perfect for a battery or hybrid vehicle.

​@blurglide What's the infrastructure impact for charging a small fleet of vehicles at an existing facility where there are no current charging stations? Installation cost, physical location space, draw, and load all need to be considered as well. What is the impact of charging 30 plus vehicles in the neighborhood? I do not think those aspects of this has even been considered by the omnipotent powers that be running the post office let alone other impacts that I haven't even thought of.

@@blurglide I disagree. While it sounds great, battery technology is not good enough to make real sense in normal passenger vehicles at this time. It makes even less sense in something that has to charge and be used every day. The only reason ANY carriers are changing to them is because of bs government mandates based on activist nonsense. Gas engines aren't going to get great mpg because of all the stop and go for sure. But in the long run, battery powered vehicles don't make sense when considering that they are designed to throw the whole vehicle away considering replacement costs often far exceed the cost of a brand new one.

@@onlylivingicon It's going to be a significant cost to outfit some of these offices with all that. Consider this: my office would need to have its entire parking lot ripped apart to put in the lines. It would need to be upgraded enough to carry all that current because I doubt it was originally intended for that amount of draw. You would need 19 chargers minimum. You have some routes in the office that approach or exceed 80 miles per day. You have Amazon days where only packages are delivered. On those days one can often exceed 100 miles. And just a few months ago I had a day where I pulled over 160 miles (that was a long day) because we had so many packages and not enough people. Now my gas tank can handle that. Can a battery powered vehicle? What happens when a carrier is told they have to get it all done and they don't have enough battery to do it? What about those tow bills when the carrier inevitably runs out somewhere out in the county? What about when a carrier forgets to plug it up overnight? What about when a carrier doesn't plug it in good enough (that already happens with scanners, but luckily scanner batteries are small enough that a couple hours on the cradle in the morning can get you enough to run a whole day)? What happens when one of those chargers malfunctions and doesn't get the vehicle charged overnight and no one discovers it until the next morning? No one has considered these questions. I can guarantee you that.

@ram89572 Exactly. I didn't pose the questions you answered, but those are some of the concerns about the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th order ramifications about feel-good decisions that few have actually considered. Environmental concerns as far as weather or power outages that can affect the start of the day, let alone human errors. The size of the vehicles affects parking due to the size of our lot. There are about 30 vehicles in my oceanside office in Massachusetts. Don't know if I want to be handling a charging cable in a downpour.

Nice! You roasted him😂😂😂

I just watched the entire video and you did roast him lol

EPA is totally useless agency anyway, they wont do jack sh*t.

Looks better that the prototype

The EPA tests are also pretty poor for EV passenger vehicles. People really only care about range when they go on a long trip, 95% on the highway at high speeds. So long as you can charge at home you really don't care about range day to day.

I am not at all related to USPS but I'm super excited for these. Safety, ergonomics, and effectiveness all together. It may by kind of goofy looking to some but I find it charming and unique. Can't wait for them to be a typical part of the American landscape as they roll out. The existing trucks are already pretty iconic and these absolutely will be too!

This video made me think "shouldn't all trucks/cars be designed so a woman can see over the hood"?

This is what matters. If the postal carriers love it, then who cares if it's ugly?

I'm a carrier near Phoenix AZ, the AC is not a nicety, it's a necessity lol.

@@darthsirrius Oh my god, yeah, I’d imagine. I’m up in Washington so I don’t have it nearly as bad

Absolutely! If you spend a significant amount of your workday hunched over picking up packages, it's going to add up over time as a physical liability.

Riding my bike to high school one day with a buddy (no hands on the handlebars, of course) who smacked right into the back of a stopped postal vehicle. Stationary, flasihing lights, big white thing on dark asphalt, it didnt' matter. Unbraced impact messed him up hard. It look me years to maybe figure out what had happened to this normally alert friend. Perhaps he trusted me to warn him. In addition to "not being there" much of the time, they come to different conclusions about a situation. I'm not sure pedestrian warnings will cover all cases, but it won't hurt. I suggest taking one step further with pedestrian warnings abd alert both driver and pedestrian. If the vehicle is on-duty (lights flashing), the warning also goes to the outside. Sometimes, we just need that wake-up call.

Bullschitt no kids have been hit by mail trucks

@@harrybaulz666 That's the point of warning people BEFORE a kid or anyone else is hit....duh.

2 kids were playing in a big grocery store parking lot. When I was about to back out of my parking spot, I checked the mirrors and could see one kid but not the other. So, I got out and walked toward the rear of my car all the while scanning for the other kid. There she was, crouched down behind my car hiding from her brother!! Can't be too careful.

the electric USPS van from Canoo is way better then this POS. check it out.

"Pentagon Wars" is from the Spurlock/Moore school of sociopolitical documentaries. Tell a lie, support the lie with good production values, sell a million copies.

Yes, the Bradley is complimented a lot by Ukrainians currently fighting with it so the vehicle turned out have a long good track record. Of course it shouldn't take away one of the lessons of engineering/procurement which is to beware of mission creep.

@justinh.7846 not only that but it performed exceptionally well in the gulf war scoring more tank kills than the abrams

they shouldn't be in ukraine and they shouldn't have ever been in iraq ... when you're a hammer everything looks like a nail

@@Hard_Right why? Are they not performing the role they were designed to perform, infantry support? What makes the bradley a uniquely flawed design when compared to all other IFV's, BMP, Puma, Marder, boxer...

Sounds like fiction following the thought process at GM back in the day.

"Three kinds of Heat!'

@@nicklappos Four doors and cup holders.

Post office can't even make left turns because left turns cause a lot of idling and waiting. At least I've heard that

@@zzoinks UPS and amazon try to figure their routes without left turns. It improves speed and safety which help with gas use which helps the bottom line.

Slow speeds with a lot of stops, is actually more efficient for an EV over an ICE vehicle too. Breaking usually puts some power back into the battery, and no extra idling energy wasted just to prevent the engine from idling.

Like to add to this on debunking disinformation The pentagon wars was based on a book that was basically the memoirs of a pathological liar. Lazer pig has an excellent 28min video on it.

@@toddfraser3353 hybrid, carry a small generator basically. Then go LiFePO4 and maintain charge between 40% & 80%. The batteries will have a lifespan of decades. But eliminates the burden of charging infrastructure.

I'm sure if it isn't there will be full accountability 😂

Technology Connections would be proud!

8:15 is missing reverse light, it has amber lights at the top.

​@@deus_ex_machina_saw his vid on that right before I got my permit, and have had experiences where it can be hard to tell what the fuck someone is doing when a car is between you and them and you can only see 1 of the taillights, so glad my Sentra has all individual lights

It's a little like early roadswitcher locomotives, stuff like RS-3s, GP7s, etc. They weren't meant to be pretty, they were meant to work, and they _did_. So well, in fact, that the basic design lives on to this day - that's how good it was

plus it's not like the old Grumman style mail trucks are any better looking. it's literally a box.

This was mentioned before the credits scroll the government spent another billion (with a 'b') on fixing the Bradley abd that it went on to get more kills in the Gulf War than even the Abrams.

True. But the Pentagon Wars remains a must see! It is both funny and informative.

@@paulmoscatt6529 The premise of the movie is that the Pentagon has a process that produces expensive weapons that don't work. That's not true. The past 30 years have shown that the process produces amazing weapons that work. The high cost reflects their real worth.

@@paulmoscatt6529 Funny sure, informatative not so much.

@@paulmoscatt6529”informative” 😂

Worker compensation and sick days are damn expensive. That has to be taken into consideration by anyone criticizing the expense.

How much it’s going to cost the tax payers?

​@robertstanley980 hasn't the USPS been self funded since the 1970s?

Odd and functional. The high roof is a must have or your drivers will look like Quasimodo at the end of a shift.

you probably work for the post office and have to drive this monstrosity

@@buzzedalldrink9131 Nope.

The great Dieter Rams said "Good design is honest" and that's what this is: it's honest about its purpose. The huge forehead, tiny nose, squat stance - that's all to make it so many types of people can effectively deliver mail.

I don't think the Bradley's record in the Gulf War counts for much..... it's not like the US was fighting against a world class military. As far as Ukraine, well, it hasn't really made a difference there. Bradley's are being destroyed in Ukraine about as fast as we can send them.

Bradley was never combat tested against a near-peer in the types of situations it was designed for. Namely, fighting Russia in eastern Europe. Ukraine is using them now, but with a different doctrine than that of the US. They're doing fairly well, but I'd bet my left nut that in a real major war, the Bradley would be too costly to keep replacing. It's a great vehicle to scout for spearhead armored assaults, that's about it though.

Sgt. York was killed because the program discovered the biggest snag in more modern systems: it's not the steel that's expensive; it's the *_SILICON_* (i.e., all the electronics) that is expensive (and not just in the installation but also in the debugging). That and from my readings, the Sgt. York was a victim of post-WW2 penny pinching (it was discovered that quite a few barrels from the stocks were actually worn-out instead of actually viable), the FCS being a buggy mess, the hydraulics they had weren't up to the task (which were going to be replaced with 5kPSI variants in the production prototypes as the 3kPSI units would break in certain scenarios), and the M48 being the chassis of choice instead of something like the M60 (though, this is understandable as the M48 was being retired and the M60 was the frontline tank until the M1 showed up a while later). I've got a bit from a tester where he says the system was better than you would think: Tom Farrier Retired USAF rescue helicopter pilot; current aviation safety contractor (UAS) said: In 1982 I participated in both cooperative and non-cooperative tests at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland, flying an Air Force CH-3E helicopter against a Sergeant York. I would have been dead many times over had it been shooting live rounds at us instead of just video. The Sergeant York was the front-runner in a program intended to provide the Army with a sorely needed “division air defense” (DIVAD) weapon system. It was based on a novel concept: re-purposing M48 Patton tank chassis’ with a new turret incorporating twin Swedish Bofors 40mm cannons and two radar systems - one for area surveillance (the rectangular antenna) and one for targeting (the conical antenna, an off-the-shelf application of the F-16′s radar). A firing control system integrated the two radars, with on-board software prioritizing targets based on the threat they were assessed to pose to the system itself. (For the late ’70s /early ’80s, this was cosmic.) If the operator elected to allow the system to engage targets hands-off, it would slew the turret around at a nauseatingly rapid rate, taking on each in turn automatically. On the next-to-last day of the test, my aircraft was joined by an Army AH-1 Cobra and OH-58 Kiowa and two Air Force A-10s. My H-3 was part of the test profile because its radar signature was essentially the same as that of an Mi-24 HIND assault helicopter of the day, which was heavily armed with both anti-tank missiles and rockets. We all converged on it simultaneously from about 6000 meters. My aircraft was the first to die, followed by the two A-10s, then the Cobra, and finally the Kiowa. It took less than 15 seconds to put plenty of hypothetical rounds into each of us. I spent a depressing amount of that week watching myself get tracked and killed on video. Trying to “mask” behind anything other than rising terrain simply didn’t work; the DIVAD radar got a nice Doppler return off my rotor system if any part of it was within its line of sight, and it burned right through trees just fine. I couldn’t outrun or out-maneuver it laterally; when I moved, it tracked me. I left feeling pretty convinced that it was the Next Big Thing, especially since I’d come into the test pretty cocky thanks to having had a lot of (successful) exercise experience against current Army air defense systems. So, what happened to the program itself? I think it was a combination of factors. First, the off-the-shelf concept was cool as far as it went, but the Patton design already was a quarter-century old; the DIVAD was awfully slow compared with the M1 Abrams tanks it was supposed to protect. It would have had a lot of trouble keeping up with the pack. Second, The Atlantic Monthly published a really nasty article (bordering on a hatchet job) purporting to show the program was a complete failure and a ruinous waste of money. One of its most impressive bits of propaganda was an anecdote about a test where the system - on full automatic - took aim at a nearby trailer full of monitoring equipment. Paraphrasing, “It tracked and killed an exhaust fan,” chortled the author. (See The Gun That Shoots Fans for a recounting of this.) Yeah, it did. It was designed to look for things that rotate (like helicopter main rotor systems) and prioritize them for prompt destruction. If any bad guys were on the battlefield in vehicles with unshrouded exhaust fans, they might have been blown away rather comprehensively. (My understanding at the time was that said fan was part of a rest room in one of the support vehicles and not a “latrine,” but why mess up a good narrative, right?) To my knowledge, neither ventilated latrines nor RVs full of recording devices are part of a typical Army unit’s table of allowance, so I really doubt there was much of a fratricide threat there. However, the bottom line was that this particular piece of partisan reporting beat the crap out of a program that I believe the Army needed, but already was facing a few developmental issues, and helped hasten its cancellation. (The New York Times opinion piece linked to above was equally laden with innuendo and assumptions. It made a fair point about possible anti-radiation attacks it might have invited… but there are radars on every battlefield, and there are means of controlling emissions. It compared a late-Fifties era Soviet system - the ZSU-23-4 - with one fully twenty years newer in design. It asserted that it couldn’t hit fixed-wing aircraft, which to my mind and personal observation was arrant nonsense. The only issue it raised that I agree with was possible NATO compatibility problems with the unique 40mm caliber shells the Sergeant York’s guns fired. Funny - the Times pontificated that it wouldn’t be cancelled, too. Oops.) Third, the hydraulics that were used in the prototype were a 3000 psi system that really couldn’t handle the weight of the turret in its Awesome Hosing Things mode. One of the only times I actually got a score on the system was when I cheated; I deliberately exploited that vulnerability. I flew straight toward the system (which would have blown us out of the sky about twenty times over had I tried to do so for real) until directly over it, then tried to defeat the system from above. If memory serves, the system specifications called for the guns to elevate to more than 85 degrees if something was coming up and over; it then would lower them quickly, slew the turret 180 degrees around, and raise the guns again to re-engage. It was supposed to be able to do that in perhaps ten seconds (but I’m here to tell you it did it a lot faster than that). So, I had my flight engineer tell me the moment the guns dropped, at which point I did a course reversal maneuver to try to catch it pointed the wrong way. What the video later showed was: Helicopter flies over. Traverse/re-acquire movement starts. Helicopter initiated hammerhead turn (gorgeous, if I say so myself). Guns started to elevate to re-engage. Clunk. Guns fall helplessly down; DIVAD crew uses bad language. The hydraulics hadn’t been able to support the multiple close-on, consecutive demands of movement in multiple axes and failed. Like I said, I cheated. The Army and the contractors already knew about this problem and were going to fit out production models with a 5000 psi system. That might have had some survivability issues of its own, but the Army was perfectly happy that we’d done what we did - it proved the test wasn’t rigged and underscored the need for the production change. Finally, the Army itself honestly appraised the system based on its progress (and lack of progress) versus their requirements. Wikipedia provides a passage that encapsulates this end-game well: “The M247 OT&E Director, Jack Krings, stated the tests showed, ‘...the SGT YORK was not operationally effective in adequately protecting friendly forces during simulated combat, even though its inherent capabilities provided improvement over the current [General Electric] Vulcan gun system. The SGT YORK was not operationally suitable because of its low availability during the tests.’ ” I guess I’m forced to conclude that the Sergeant York was a really good concept with some definite developmental flaws - some recognized and being dealt with, perhaps one or two that would have made it less than fully effective in its intended role - that was expensive enough for bad PR to help bring it down before it fully matured. The Army was under a lot of political pressure to get it fielded, but to their credit they decided not to potentially throw good money after bad. On balance, a lot of the contemporaneous criticisms mounted against the M247 really don’t hold up very well over time. Short-range air defense currently is provided by the latest generation of the AN/MPQ-64F1 Improved Sentinel system. Radar emitting on the battlefield? Check. Target prioritization capabilities? Check. Towed (which equals “slow”) versus self-propelled? Check. I’m glad we never wound up in the position of needing it but not having it. My personal judgment was and is that it probably could have wound up a heck of a lot more capable and useful than its developmental history might suggest, but its cancellation probably was justified given other acquisition priorities at the time. Bottom line: I repeatedly flew a helicopter against it over the course of many hours of testing, including coming at it as unpredictably as I knew how, and it cleaned my clock pretty much every time.

​@@greyfells2829If it was, why are we still using it.

Yea cmon, how many tanks has an aztek destroyed, none!

Maybe that is why the post offices near me still use the LLV? Almost all mounted mailboxes.

And that 70 mile range is a minimum after years of expected battery degradation and use of climate controls, very unlikely to see that range anytime soon barring some horrible mistakes in manufacturing

Now or in the future? In Seattle we have a bunch of promasters used by letter carriers (left hand drive).

@@det_tf2 And theres no way there would be any of those, but I'm being told I'll be having to deal with everything that goes wrong which will be interesting... Apparently these aren't coming with much of any warranty available, I think I was told basically the engine and frame, and I'm terrified they're going to be something at the level of the Metris for 'reliability'...

About right 😂

But try taking a racehorse all the places a camel can go

Aren't dromedaries used in desert races? :3

camels are pretty fast ngl

And all this time I thought ithe design was inspired by the Chicken Truck from the Big Bird movie.

They were incredibly practical. One pedal driving, maneuverable, easy to load and unload. But the committees couldn't make money faffing around for years "designing". Divco-Wayne made them by the hundeds. THey were repurposed by many many people.

The reason the LLV is being retired doesn't have to do with anything you mentioned. The LLV is being retired because of when the LLV was brought into service this was before internet shopping became a thing, and so the overwhelming majority of the mail the LLV would be carrying were letters, and it was designed for that. Once relatively heavy packages became the norm guess what little van got overloaded on a regular basis? Relocating a windshield wiper fluid reservoir is easy. The Iron Duke is the perfect engine for the LLV, it is arguably the most durable small engine ever made, Iron block, timing gears, horribly understressed, etc.

The windshield wiper fluid is flammable 😂

The Iron Duke was NOT a 30 year old design when these LLV were first produced. The Iron Duke, which was a Pontiac engine, was introduced in the late 70's.

@@Rokomarn Proper windshield wiper fluid has alcohol in it, so it is mildly flammable.

I drove the Jeep for a year or two, finally getting used LLVs with lots of miles on them. I have to say, though, the LLV is basically a great design that needs further refinement. Due to the lack of a lot of first class mail we experience when the internet took off, we are getting less mail. When Amazon quit the USPS, we got fewer packages. Retrofitting the LLV with better engines, slightly redesigned body interior to prevent your head from be bruised, would fix it all. You can use the current platforms for retrofitting and not spend a ton of money. The USPS really doesn't need to spend billions when it spends more than it makes. And why in the world does the USPS deliver 6 days a week, not 5, giving every regular employee a weekend off?

That last sentence is pure literary genius! XD

@@bondgabebond4907 Because business and life runs 7 days a week now. The six day week is from our Judeo-Christian heritage of honoring one day as the Sabbath. Nothing to do with giving people consecutive days off.

@@bondgabebond4907 You have made the comment I wanted to do.Absolutely correct,because I figure NOBODY asked the people that have to USE these vehicles day in day out in all kinds of weather

USPS drivers are going to get tired of hearing those parking sensors going of all the time and might ignore them when it's important.

That statistic really surprised me. I had to verify it the first time I heard it. The press does like to hype some things like ev fires.

That’s because an EV fire isn’t a regular fire. It is more dangerous and toxic to the environment. Harder to extinguish. Burns hotter. The fumes produced can be fatal to first responders or anyone else involved. These are not just normal car fires. They are more serious and need more scrutiny. There clearly needs to be bans on them in or around any structure, etc.

​@@ohhhface619 So what about the 3.3 million Hyundai/Kia gas vehicles so likely to catch fire that mahe maker told owners NOT to park them in buildings? I understand that EV fires are hotter, harder to put out, etc. However, the number of EV fires is miniscule compared to hybrid and gas vehicle fires. See data below. A fire department somewhere in the mid-west had a brain storm and came up with an answer for EV (and other vehicle fires). A fire blanket, a freaking enormous fire blanket, about 20 feet wide and 30-40 feet long. Two fire fighters wearing full protective gear (including oxygen) simply pull the blanket over the vehicle on fire, and it goes out due to lack of oxygen. They they leave the blanket on, while cooling it with water until it is cool enough that the lithium will not catch fire spontaneously. Here is the vehicle fire data from NHTSA: Vehicle Fuel Fires (per 100K vehicle) Total Fire 1. Hybrid 3474.5 16,051 2.Gas 1529.9 199,533 3.Electric 25.1 52 I know this may be hard to read, but here it is: Per 100,000 vehicles of each type, Hybrids had 3,474 fires, gas vehicles had 1,529, and electrics had 52, again all per 100,000 vehicles of that type. The news media has become fixated on EV fires, and love to run video's of it. But the data is clear, they don't catch on fire frequently. Source: www.carjunkya.com/electric-car-fire-statistics/#:~:text=Hybrid%2Dpowered%20vehicles%20are%20at,and%203.4%25%20for%20hybrid%20vehicles. Data on leading cause of vehicle fires: The top cause of vehicle fires is rotted fuel lines that leak gasoline or diesel onto hot engine parts. From: guerrallp.com/practice-areas-old-page/automotive-defects/what-makes-a-car-catch-on-fire#:~:text=The%20top%20cause%20of%20vehicle,fire%20from%20a%20simple%20spark.&text=Electrical%20system%20failures%20are%20the,of%20car%20fires%20in%20America. So, in essence, EV's fire are blown way out of proportion.

@@ohhhface619 Are you trying to have a conversation or just inject a narrative, because you are not even on subject.

While obviously fires are bad, and we'd like to have them less frequently, the _severity_ of the fire matters! An EV battery fire is a metal fire, and contains all 3 points of the Fire Triangle: Fuel, Oxygen, Heat. I'd rather get bit weekly by mosquitoes than a highly venomous snake once. I had dinner with the fire chief at the local airport a few months back. Lithium fires are what they fear most. We discussed on-board aircraft fires, EVs in the garage, etc., and this was right before the Luton fire. There currently aren't any good ways to deal with EV / large lithium battery fires.

That’s the government for ya

no one is going to convert the usps to support EVs for 900k

sounds like government contracts...

Reading Oshkosh's proposals from years ago in which they admit freely that they have no BEV expertise, supply chain, etc... and will have to contract out everything, is completely confounding and maddening. It's glaringly obvious they will never produce BEVs at scale, and anywhere near cost-competitively with COTS options. I look forward to the 2026 Netflix documentary about the staggering corruption and incompetence at play.

Exactly, not possible for $900,000

Who is held accountable if these things start dropping like flies?

@@The_Ballo The prime contractor.

@@farmcat3198 haha, I doubt it

Current USPS VMF TECH here. Did you guys EVER consult with any end users?

@@mike27356 Yes we did. Not as many as we would have liked. There was generally a political blocker and some sort of labor union restriction that restricted access to users. We had to work with what we had in that situation.

Hybrid would do this automatically.

the idea that your charging dicipline is so incomprehensibly inept that you need fast charge in a fleet is laughable

@@Thesupremeone34 True. The vehicle is going to sit for 2/3 of the day at worst.

LLV is a good vehicle, but bad gas mileage, and high maintenance costs..😬

​@@cback94they are getting worn out and parts are harder to get. It was better than the jeep but lots of room for improvement still.

@@fredbecker607 Getting worn out? The nice examples might be at that level. The ones I've had experience with long ago past the getting worn out stage and are well into the total crapbox stage. Think about needing to drive a long dirt road inside one of them. You'll be lucky to hear anything for the next hour or two after listening to that god awful noise for 8 miles

@@fredbecker607 They use GM parts which are extremely easy to come by,

Not as ugly as the Gremlin! However, the engine of the latter survived many more years as the Jeep 4.0 L. six. It was virtually indestructible.

hornets were not ugly, you should take that back.

That was the Mazda GLC (literally Great Little Car). And yes Hornets were ugly.

This is such a great point!

Quite the little backwater there in NY, huh?

@@cbotten106 oh yeah! The paint on the hoods are faded through and you can see the spray gun lines

The ghost of Grumman remains on Long Island! And they used to have such a huge footprint. Aluminum body, I'll bet. Grumman stopped making canoes decades ago but you can still run across them pretty frequently. They simply don't wear out. OK, hardly a good comparison - but quality aluminum is damn durable. What's the chassis bases on?

Arnold?

Yup, there is still no reason to believe the Oshkosh truck will ever enter mass production. Oshkosh admits they don't have the required EV expertise and will need to contract out core EV functionality.

@@funkijote Workhorse does. They have the factory, staff and expertise now. Oshkosh is/was a joke. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rL9piMaFxMvaiZ8.htmlsi=R1Acx5XX5HkvVGSV kzfaq.info/get/bejne/iN-hiNqhs7jHlqs.htmlsi=llOVCrJfaPoJdcXK kzfaq.info/get/bejne/b6uDY6SZv9HekYU.htmlsi=j2ZgvcN2K7yFMg-Y kzfaq.info/get/bejne/erh2q8mWtazRY6c.htmlsi=8EvllfKQTMSH7XSv

They try electric vehicles, and when they start running out of batteries on the road, it becoems a nightmare. Never mind the cold. And they want these new ones to have air conditioning.

​@@gregorymalchuk272 EVs are a proven technology. There is no reason to believe they will "run out of batteries on the road".

The article says 75% EV. Did I miss something?

Yes, that is a official requirement.

should get some sick rims and maybe a lowrider hydraulics system too while we're at it

Missed perfect opportunity to use joke from Good Morning Vietnam when talking about abbreviation... "Excuse me, sir. Seeing as how the V.P. is such a V.I.P., shouldn't we keep the P.C. on the Q.T.? 'Cause of the leaks to the V.C. he could end up M.I.A., and then we'd all be put out in K.P."

I'd rather have a heated bumper then a rough textured surface, of which becomes even more slippery then a smooth surface under heavy snow & freezing conditions.

The problem that causes late delivery will still be present in the new model

I've been stopped 3Xs this year alone by other drivers tellin me that my plate was missing 😂

@@BoomBap75 It just seems like such a simple thing for them to put SOMETHING on it, right? I hadn't even thought about the people who didn't realize postal vehicles don't get registered and don't need license plates lol.

they put numbered decals onto the bodywork likely to save money on making plates. oddly, some of their support vehicles do use actual plates but most of them will go without. if they're seen using plates,it will say "US government" and the text on it will be the decal written on the bodywork.

@marcberm Remember,we're talkn about da PostalService....Where Common Sense NEVER EXISTED!!!They told me at the Carrier Academy back in 1997,"If you see sumthin that doesn't make sense,it's NOT YOU,it's their intention!!"-😂..It's even WORSE NOW than back then..They still send us LLVs that barely runs good as Loaners,when repairing a current vehicle..When asked why do we even still keep the broke down LLVs in the fleet,My postmaster replied, "We can't get rid of em as long as the wheels are still good,and the engine is running!!"He even acknowledged that the BigWigs Downtown(Philly)knows the LLVs are a FIRE HAZARD,but they still won't take them out of service bcuz they wanna wait until they're OFFICIALLY DEAD...

yes,some postal vehicles can be found in government surplus auctions although most get crushed after service.

The public will likely never have the opportunity. The only reason there are a few LLVs in private hands is because Grumman made a few too many in excess of the USPS order, and they weren't explicitly disallowed to sell them to the public. I'm pretty sure that loophole no longer exists

No,no,no,no. This is the American government, you can't use common sense.

At first glance, yes it makes more sense to use COTS vehicles that already come in RDH variants but when you actually dig into the the implementation it's becomes obvious why they didn't. The Metris is the only one of the 3 that is currently available in the US as RHD. But you can't stand up in the back, it doesn't have the package capacity the USPS wanted, and the doors are notorious for breaking off their hinges. Add that to the fact that Mercedes isn't interested in expanding the US market because no one other than USPS buys them. On to the ProMaster and Transit. While they are available in other markets in RHD configuration (the ProMaster is called the Fiat Ducato in Europe) they are not currently sold in the US. There's all sorts of finicky rules you need to deal with to import cars less than 25 years old, mainly crash testing which is extremely expensive. But it might be worth it considering the number of vehicles that will be purchased, but they you remember that they're not built in America. Which for a US government contract of this magnitude and visibility is a non-starter. And you can't just force them to be made in America either because then Ford and Stellantis have to spend the money up front to get them certified for sale in the US and change their manufacturing lines for a share of vehicles that is very small compared to their other US market share. It just wouldn't make a ton of business sense for them to do all that bespoke work to supply vehicles to a single customer. So there is some logic to the decision and you have to remember that the situation is often not as clear cut as it seems.

@@Jelly452527 I worked on this proposal to the postal service when I was at Ford. We would have been more than happy to build the RHD versions at Kansas City Assembly. Even with the added engineering and tooling, it would still be way more economical than designing and manufacturing an all-new vehicle as they are doing. The real issue was that the postal service did not want to compromise on their specifications - at all. A big issue was the "driver's" door - it had to be a full-heigh sliding door. Yeah, that right there was a non-starter.

@@dperreno can you blame them for not wanting to compromise? If I was buying 100k vehicles that are expected to last 20+ years (which for the Transit is questionable) I would want it to be exactly to my specifications

@@Jelly452527 It's the specifications that push the cost to $100k+. The RHD Metros that they are currently using only cost them probably $20k. Even an electric version of the Metro/Ram/Transit would be under $40k. Just sayin.

The issue with the Bradley as used here is not it's competence but what is often known as "feature creep" during it's design.

The issue with the Bradley is that it gets used for stuff it wasn't designed for. More like mission creep.

@@popuptoaster Feature creep just wasn’t an issue with the Bradley. The thing was from the get go a reaction to the BMP. The Bradley had no lineage with the troop transports designs that just had machine guns, it from the start had an turreted auto cannon.

the rivian van is more than good enough for the job they dont need to complicate things, i dont get it! OEM manufacturers have more than enough safety features and better integrated options for a fleet vehicle for example.

​@@carholic-sz3qvthe Rivian doesn't come in RDH in America, so you can't deliver to mailboxes with it. You're also sitting way too high for mailbox deliver anyway

bumpers is for the kids, someone explained it well in comments

Right on 👍..don’t need DC fast charging.. Level 2 J1772 plug should be fine 🤑

They will probably transition to NACS at some point.

Thankfully CCS and NACS are just different shapes for the same protocol and wires, so it should be easy enough to retrofit if it ends up being a problem. That being said, these are fleet vehicles that will likely go through there whole lives charging at one home lot after each run, so compatibility with anything other than the chargers at that specific lot probably won’t matter too much. A heat pump definitely wouldn’t go amiss though, especially since between the large exterior size, window, and how frequently the door and window need to be opened compared to how short a typical route is, heating load is liable to be a lot more of a drain on the battery compared to driving than it would be for a regular EV. That extra 2 to 3 times the energy consumption in cold weather is something that probably is worth adding an reversing valve to the AC for.

the money they save on gas will also be huge, even if it takes a few years.

Meh. They'll make it up in gas savings and reduced maintenance in under a year.

@@andrewdiamond2697 just remember that with any new vehicle you have reduced maintenance for the first few years anyway, which is partially offset by the purchase price. We know the power source will be cheaper. The unknown here is the cost of installing / upgrading electrical at any given facility... and of course, there will be some maintenance needed on that gear over time. I'd say 3-5 years overall for cost break even on the whole ball of wax.

@@rupe53 I saw a spreadsheet on this once. It was an astoundingly quick payback. At scale, installing a Level 2 charger can be done for about $700 in materials and $600 in labor per spot. Then the electric company needs to provide service to the site. Not sure if the power company pays that or the USPS, but that certainly costs some money. Bottom line, the way these vehicles suck down gas with their constant start-stop-start-stop, it was measured in months and not years. I was pretty stunned.

@@andrewdiamond2697 I was basing my call on privately owned EVs and cutting it on half. I think we're both on the right track that it will be quicker than most people know.

Do you really think they will replace ALL of these existing trucks in a single year? Do you really feel they all need to charge every night when the average postal route is in the area of 25 miles or less? Yes, there are always exceptions, but they can work it out.

I dunno. Amazon went from zero electric vans 2 years ago to me seeing at least 8 of 10 vans around here being electric. I think they can get the post office distribution centers with chargers as fast as they can produce the vehicles. I mean, it's only level 2. Level 2 is like a clothes dryer or household oven.

@@rupe53 No I said its going to take a decade to phase in. Some post offices have 20 or 30 trucks. Ok so maybe half of them charge each night. A lot of electrical work will have to be done at each PO. At their pace... 10 years, bidding process etc etc.

@@greenfire919 our government may have some issues, but when the chips are down, I see a bid process that's maybe 90 days and less than 90 days to complete work. BTW, the post office is only regulated by the feds. It's actually a stand-alone deal, although I see federal funding involved to pull this off. The only thing I see taking longer is if they decide to prioritize WHERE this happens first.

Chargers run on 240 V. Installing a charging stand takes most of the time for the construction work. And they can power various lines of vehicles at a time to limit the load.

Pentagon Wars may have been a funny movie, but not very factual. The Bradley Fighting Vehicle is a solid system with a good reputation and is being used in Ukraine now very well.

@@rogerd777 BFV is the best that San Jose, CA can produce!

We're talking about a lot of money. Research is necessary. The LLV was a good purchase that they will end up using for 35+ years by the time these new vehicles are fully supplied. Hopefully, this purchase will end up being good as well.

@@robj2704 crap!!!! its just another way for the government to waste tax money! all those mail delivery vans could have been odered to be make by Rivian, Ford or GM they have enough tech in house to bring more safety and integrate more features and finally using parts from millions of other vehicles they makes will ensure those will last even longer than 35 years! look at the b-52 bomber with new engines.

​@robj2704 it looks like some good improvements. Parcel delivery has really picked up over the last 10 years. Being able to stand in the back is great. It was never fun to work kneeling or hunched over in the llv. Air-conditioning would be fabulous if it is allowed. The usps was known to disable it in the leased vehicles. Management thought we would waste time trying to cool off in the summer.

@@fredbecker607 Yep. I was a city letter carrier, also. I remember all the junk we had to put up with. I've been retired 16 years now.

@@fredbecker607 Well thankfully they haven't disabled it in the Metris vans that I've seen.

Possibly due to higher upfront costs of the changeover, but also likely for political reasons during the Trump administration. City/suburban delivery over fixed routes based from a central depot is a near-ideal use case for electrification.

An EV version is on order now. 66,000 of them for delivery in 2028.

Originally, all of the new vehicles was supposed to be electric. Then something shady happened behind doors. I worked for USPS.

@@NextNate03 Donald Trump - he was recorded asking for a billion dollar “campaign contribution” from oil companies to cancel the current administration’s policies.

Electrifying a fleet is a compromise rather than an improvement at this point. Maybe in future EVs will be an improvement but for now they are not