GOP omnibus bill would sell off USPS's EVs

Scrappers? UPS and Fedex would need bigger vehicles than this. Maybe some other country's postal service would take advantage of it and buy them up, but that's about it as far as I can see.

It's all part of a much larger plan to cripple the USPS so republicans can justify outsourcing mail delivery to the private sector. Take a great investment the USPS made that would decrease health premiums (because it's so much better ergonomically for drivers) and lower operating costs, and throw it into a fire. Now USPS has to continue to maintain the LLVs, even as they continue to fall apart and the drivers suffer.

The skeptic in me thinks the provision was added at the behest of the future purchaser. Amazon? FedEx? UPS?

There’s a good chance this ends up as outright thievery.

Maybe they’d be bought as last-mile vehicles for FedEx contractors or similar?

Selling them off really doesn’t make sense, though. I understand that the USPS operates in many areas that aren’t conducive to EVs and that ICE models are needed there, but these electric models would be extremely well-suited for urban areas where drivers are making frequent stops given how poorly ICEs perform in constant-stop-and-go scenarios.

If there's only 93 of them as posted elsewhere in the thread, there's no scale needed, just two randos per state.

Plenty of people driving old usps mail jeeps, you can always find someone who wants to drive something weird.

If these are legal to drive on Europe I think they have a good market offshore.

If most other last mile delivery companies (e.g. UPS) weren't already commissioning their own delivery vans, then I would say that any one of them could pick up the slack.`

I don't think there is any desire to find a legitimate buyer. The bill wants to say "throw them into a landfill" but the architects are trying to sound thrifty. Stated reasoning: "Stop wasting the government's money on useless initiatives. Sell these white elephants and ask employees to use their own car!" Actual reasoning: "We need to burn more oil. There are campaign donations on the line and the midterms are going to be very tough for us. Big Electricity does not donate to campaigns and we can't take the money we save on fuel and use it for ads."

What's the story with the rest of the contract? You don't normally get a vehicle manufacturer to start up a custom line without some contract in place wrt minimum orders (or paying out the wazoo).

> that wouldn’t get many clicks nor be on the first page of HN.

It probably would. Knowing the small number of vehicles involved makes the bill seem more capricious and stupid, not less.

FWIW there are ICE and EV versions of the new trucks... There are a lot of benefits for the EV version, but I think both have AC. Not sure idling the engine to run the AC would be feasible, though. "Idling" an EV to run the AC would have much less "fuel" impact.

I imagine their argument is that these are a waste of money and EVs are completely impractical. But that doesn't really square with big players in delivery voluntarily adopting EVs, and the physics around delivery driving patterns that really really benefits EVs.

i dont know what the republicans are saying but FTA:

> Oshkosh encountered delays and engineering problems during early manufacturing runs, and disagreements — and accusations of corporate dishonesty — among executives plagued the production process, The Washington Post reported in December.

> Oshkosh was supposed to have delivered about 3,000 vehicles by the end of 2024. Instead it had provided roughly 100 and raised its prices as the Postal Service ordered additional EVs.

sounds like cancelling should be agreed upon bipartisanly; partisan divide maybe on whether or not it's worthwhile to restart the procurement process.

3 republicans are quoted in the article defending the proposal. Is there a better argument that the article didn’t quote?

“EVs bad, oil good.”

This is The Omnibus Bill (tm) of the administration -- this provision could be stricken during reconciliation, but respectfully I think it's close enough to passing that it's a valid topic of discussion.

But hardly unbiased.

Checking the news every day and seeing whole new categories of open corruption, inane sabre-rattling, and petty shattering of anything that works well is just exhausting.

Not sure how to fix this, but it's gotta happen somehow.

> I hate this administration and group of people like nothing I’ve hated before.

I'm in the same boat. Politically / culturally I'm pretty centrist, and historically I've found things to like and dislike about both parties' governance. (G.W. Bush was the first administration I ever hated. But I'm mostly willing to write GW Bush off as a moron, and his fellow Republicans as inept.)

With Trump 2, for the first time I actually loath the entire Republican party, and the voters who support him. I'm having a very difficult time believing anything praiseworthy behind their motives.

It's the first time I truly fear for the immediate future of the country. I'm sure this says as much about me as it does about the Republicans. But if there are many others like me, this can't be a good sign of what's to come.

Oshkosh Corporation will get a new military contract :) No worries there.

Let’s be honest - Oshkosh Corporation is really strange choice for making EVs. Very strange choice.

waves hands "there is no quid pro quo"

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/23/politics/trump-senate-democra...