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Postal service plans to spend billions on EV chargers and roughly 66,000 new trucks Contract cancellation likely part of sweeping executive order on EVsTrump transition weighs plan to cancel USPS contracts to build large EV fleet
Dec 6 (Reuters) - Donald Trump’s transition team is considering canceling the U.S. Postal Service’s contracts to electrify its delivery fleet, as part of a broader suite of executive orders targeting electric vehicles, according to three sources familiar with the plans.
The move, which could be unveiled in the early days of Trump’s administration that begins on Jan. 20, is in line with Trump’s campaign promises to roll back President Joe Biden’s efforts to decarbonize U.S. transportation to fight climate change – an agenda Trump has said is unnecessary and potentially damaging to the economy.
Reuters has previously reported that Trump is planning to kill a $7,500 consumer tax credit for electric vehicle purchases, and plans to roll back Biden’s stricter fuel-efficiency standards.
The sources told Reuters that Trump’s transition team is now reviewing how it can unwind the postal service’s multibillion-dollar contracts, including with Oshkosh (OSK.N), and Ford (F.N) for tens of thousands of battery-driven delivery trucks and charging stations.
Oshkosh shares fell by roughly 5% to 105.65 per share after the Reuters report.
Hey look! Let’s just raise a huge middle finger to what’s left of our ecosystems.
How did it go? Yes, humanity was destroyed, but for one moment we maximized profits!
Not to mention that carriers love the new trucks.
Because they’re heated and actually safe to drive and don’t break down every two months like the old mail vehicles.
Current LLVs are heated, they don’t have AC.
They’ll still get the gas powered ones. Pretty much have to; those old mail trucks are far past their expiration date.
You’re assuming trump intends to keep the USPS. He wants to destroy/privatise it. He said so all the way back in 2021, but at the time, didn’t have a mandate to actually accomplish it.
His cronies stand to make billions if the USPS is dismantled and all mail and shipping can go through their companies instead.
At this point, it’s not really about maximizing profits, it’s about trying to undo every change Biden made
At this point, it’s not really about maximizing profits, it’s about trying to undo every change Biden made
Its even worse. The new truck was likely by Dejoy, Trump’s own appointee.
What do you mean?
Trump appointed DeJoy in 2020 to the position as Postmaster General.
OK. I am still having trouble parsing
The new truck was by Dejoy
What does that mean?
Trump chose Dejoy to lead the Post Office. Dejoy is head of the Post Office. The Post Office chose this new EV truck. Therefore the new EV truck is a product of Trump’s choice. Now Trump is trying to kill his (by proxy) chosen EV truck.
Ah gotcha. I don’t think Dejoy is a green advocate or anything. Congress gave the postal service 3B dollars to invest in electric vehicles, and that’s what they started doing. They are cheaper if you amortize costs over a decade.
Trump’s is Putin’s puppet. He’s set to destroy whatever he can.
The way he talked about Putin making Obama look dumb… he thinks that when you act like an asshole and tear down what someone built that it makes the other person look bad.
That’s cause he’s a bully. He’s only ever brought people down to bring himself up. He thinks this is the same thing.
Trump doesn’t care. He’s going to be dead in a few years and as far as he’s concerned, the entire universe could instantly implode afterward.
In fact, he probably thinks the universe ends when his finite energy battery that keeps his fat ass from exercising gives out.
Those trucks get like six miles to the gallon, they’re a massive liability on American finances. If the average price of gas changes by a cent that’s something like nearly a million dollars difference. This isn’t maximizing profit, this is just being petty to own the libs.
In case anyone wants to do math, it’s actual MPG is a 17 combination. In real world settings it gets 8 - 10 MPG. From recent hearing EV USPS truck costs 20k more than ICE variant. The new Oshkosh vehicle uses 1.5kWh supposedly.
If anyone was curious the new replacement ICE variant should get 8.5 to 10.5 MPG.
Grumman absolutely knocked it out of the park with that LLV design for it being 4 decades ago.
There it is!
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I think you’re under some misconceptions about how this has happened. The old trucks are completely non-viable. Way past their expected lifespan. They all need to go. If there was a time to phase out the old trucks, it was about 20 years ago.
The new trucks come in EV and gas flavors. The EV version only has a 70 mile range, but that’s plenty for many city/suburban routes. So they’re putting them in where they make sense and everything else gets the gas version. Over time, a longer range EV version could take over the vast majority of routes, if not all of them.
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They got those because the Gremlins are falling apart. They’re not likely to be scrapped. They’re probably going to be sold at auction a few years from now.
USPS doesn’t like selling the old Gremlins at auction because they’re sensitive about anyone impersonating a mail carrier (though a few have slipped through into private hands). Nobody else operates them, so any Gremlin looks like a mail carrier. A Metris, though, is just another van, and a quick paint job to remove the USPS logos is all they need.
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More EVs means lower gas prices.
This drives up gas prices.
Killing the tax credit drives up gas prices.
It’s quite remarkable how economically m ignorant a large section of America is. Supply and demand is the easiest model to understand and yet these voters have been positioned to work against their own best interest at a basic economic level.
And this is only one a hundreds of examples. Fascinating time to be alive.
More EVs means lower gas prices.
This drives up gas prices.
I know, it’s almost as though the multinational oil corporations and their shareholders who backed all three of Trump’s campaigns want higher oil and gas prices for some reason… what could that be?
That part at least makes sense.
It’s all the voters with their massive gas guzzling vehicles that are voting against their best interest. Over and over again.
The fact is that you’re politically engaged and the average voter is not.
They’re not dumb or anything, but politics and economics are not things for which they look past their noses. Politics and economics are complex topics and that’s why Trump’s antics and tactics work so well. He stays in the headlines and gets people feeling like they’re part of a team. For a similar example, loads of folks don’t pay attention to NFL players, teams, and coaches during the off season… but once games start happening, allegiances are taken. Even if a neighboring or different franchise might have a better chance of winning (thus make you feel like a winner by proxy) you might still just cheer on the team that first caught your attention/is in your geographic area. People don’t want a sermon and they definitely don’t want to be scolded… they want to be on a winning team regardless of the consequences of that choice (leopards eating faces, etc, etc).
No, thats fuckin’ dumb and people who voted for this are dumb.
I know it’s frustrating as hell, but lashing out at voters isn’t the answer. They’re not dumb, they’re just not engaged. The system of American politics keeps them disengaged on purpose.
“Not engaged” means “willfully ignorant”.
The presidential election season is like 18 months long. Information is ubiquitous. Plenty of time to find just one rabbit hole to stumble into and realize your guy is a conman and a crook.
In fact, I’d say it’s pretty much impossible that these people were “not engaged”. They chose to not engage. They had the same opportunity to educate themselves and they chose to tune it out. That’s what toddlers do. Stick fingers in their ears and proceed on with life. Only remove fingers from ear to lick wax. This is how the majority of Americans choose to live their life.
Maybe literacy tests wouldn’t be such a bad idea now that there is compulsory education .
Damn, literacy tests… now there’s a policy the Democrats haven’t championed since Jim Crow. I remember Rush Limbaugh going on a scree about us “needing” to bring back those in the 1990’s. Are there any other policies from one of the darkest periods of American history you would also like to go back to? Perhaps the reimplementation of poll taxes or just force marching some Native Americans into the desert?
They could at least spend 10 minutes googling before heading off to stand in line for hours to vote for some dipshit who opposes everything they think they are voting for
As I said, they may only be voting for the “team” about which they got excited and not much else. There not dumb, the American political system has set about keeping voters as passive as is possible for the purposes of exploiting them. Trump is just the latest (and most naked) bit of exploitation.
Better get my passive aggressive stickers ready
I was just thinking the other day someone needs to cut out a picture of Trump pointing for this purpose. If he actually implements all the things he’s saying, there will be MANY opportunities to slap that on prices (even if it’s only in memes online).
I don’t understand why the left doesn’t take a page out of the rights playback in this regard. We’ve seen how effective things like this and memes are at changing people’s beliefs, yet nobody is willing to try it. They’d rather have some graduate-level economics professor try to explain how things work to a bunch of people with a 4th grade reading level in order to educate them, but this is an obviously flawed approach that doesn’t work.
I mean it doesn’t need to be a coordinated act from “the left”.
Go print some stupid Trump stickers that say “I did that” and go stick them on everything. When gas goes up, stick them on the pumps. When electronics go up. Stick them on the boxes at best buy.
The issue isn’t “the left” as some amorphous organization. It’s that most people who align more left aren’t that petty. The left is a much more disorganized, factions political position than the right. And that’s because the GOP has worked relentlessly to build a cohesive base.
Passiveaggressive. FTFYOne of the main problems of the Dems is playing nice, and expecting rules to be followed.
It’s time to fight using their weapons.
Dumb take.
Everybody knows the real cause of high gas prices is Joe Biden. Haven’t you seen the stickers on the pumps? It says it right there…“I did that”, with a picture of Biden’s face.
That may be true, but I saw a hot chick and she turned out to have a dick. Fascism/Hate 2024
Screw it, at least the prices will be high come next election (if we have one)
Gas prices are artificially created by OPEC… Although considering Trump is buddies with Russia and others, I could see him wanting an excuse to increase demand so they can sell more.
That control only exists as long as demand increases. They need oil revenue. Less demand means they need to increase supply to maintain revenue. Increased supply means prices fall. These are incredibly basic economic principles. Every EV sold decreases their control.
I guess I just didn’t see how whatever fraction of a percent of gas used by USPS vehicles is really going to impact a global market. Prices drop, people buy bigger cars, other countries slow changes as well, one more easy well gets permanently capped.
China’s EV market has probably been a way bigger shock to oil price than part of a percent of US gas use changing would be.
The existing fleet is past aging out, they are often held together with patch welds and duct tape in my area. Is the plan ride it until the wheels literally fall off, with no replacements in pipeline?
Actually yes. They want to privatize it so that they can make money on it. Failure is the goal.
“Failure is the goal” needs to be the subtitle of every news story for the foreseeable future.
Yeah but even if that’s the play - could private business even fill the gap? USPS stretches the final miles deep into places not profitable to deliver to. Businesses, doing business stuff, use it to economically have their products available to the rural communities that voted these policies in… it’s all so confusing.
Is mailing a letter automated space communism? Sheesh.
And ironically, it’s the flyover deep red parts of the country that are the most rural, and therefore the most unprofitable legs of these delivery services. As with so many other GOP policies, it would mostly impact their supporters.
The worse it gets, the more they’ll blame the libs
Well that’s what happens when you create a TV station to gaslight people 24/7 unimpeded for decades.
They don’t care if there’s gaps, those people just won’t get mail service. They’re only interested in extracting as much money as they can from the rotting husk of the US economy. They’ve just hollowed out so much of the middle class now that they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel and need to start squeezing the last dregs out of the barely profitable things like the USPS.
People have this idea that they will just up and dissolve or sell off USPS one day, that won’t happen. It will just slowly fall.
Private companies want access to mailboxes, that’s all this is about.
That simple thing will kill USPS, but they don’t care. It immediately kills the sanctity of mail, because now you don’t know if something was tampered with after it arrives in the box, before you get to check it.
So all congress has to do is allow mailbox access to private companies and refuse to issue any loans or funding and they will be crippled. Slowly having to sell off post office real estate and cutting staff, until the budget is balanced and mail services are abysmal.
Oh and as an added bonus, it will hamper USPS OIG ability to do any mail fraud type investigations. So that means you can bet there will be scams galore… Imagine if you get like 3 different bills from your power company, they all kind of look legit. You call the number and all 3 say you need to pay them.
No. Not only can it not fill the gap there isn’t an intent to.
It’s just, sell off a chunk of the government so someone can make money on a service.
Actually yes. They want to privatize it so that they can make money on it. Failure is the goal.
Actually yes. They want to privatize it so that they can
make money on itfurther exploit the working class. Failure is the goal.Although you’re right, I like to call out what it will do to everyone so it’s more explicit and will hopefully click in people’s minds.
Why is that a question? How else do you plan to privatize one of the most ubiquitous federal services?
The plan is to make it so ineffective it can justifiably be privatized entirely and their friends make millions by jacking up rates on a product that by design and necessity has no direct competitors.
It’s like having an enemy agent in the big chair leads to terrible decisions for basic needs…
No, they will just redirect to gas. They are buying something either way, the money has already been committed. Right now it’s 50/50 ev and gas plan, while slowing increasing the EV percentage as they roll out the chargers.
Now it sounds like they want to scrap it all, which is unfortunate considering chargers are in process of being built.
Crippling the USPS with additional fuel costs and shitty low mileage vehicles will work out great I’m sure.
As designed so they can privatize.
Not just that. They’re going to cripple these services so bad that they don’t even function and then blame their ineptitude on this sick remnant of the Democratic past, while they point at the flaws they created as justification.
You won’t have a choice. You don’t, actually.
Easier to control mail in ballots if it’s privatized.
Don’t worry, Elon Musk has a much better idea for a postal vehicle. All he needs is 10 years and 1 trillion dollars and he’ll be ready with the prototype.
And then the prototype will be just the regular robotaxi where he stuffed a bunch of letters on the passender seat. Car is meant go from house to house and then honk untill people come down and pick up their stuff from the seat. Unfortunately, the vehicle only works in movie studios with a pre-programmed route. Those of you not living in a movie studio will have to pick up their stuff at the next Tesla dealer for a small fee of $10.
This is probably Trump’s way of telling Leon not to get out of line.
I’d love it if Trump fired Elon and Elon spent his billions fighting him.
I mean it’s possible.
Both Trump and Musk are the kind of rich assholes who are your “best friend” until they notice that a knife would fit very conveniently in your back. A pants shitting grifter and dot com bubble roulette winner, I can’t picture this odd couple having any love lost between them.
According to Epstein one of Trump’s favorite past-times was getting his best friends to sleep with prostitutes so he could tell their wives about it and get them to sleep with him in revenge.
But Christian and family values amirite?
And his dipshit USPS head is still there waiting for his time to shine.
Well if you watched the recent hearing the Republicans were reaming him out because he apparently hasn’t slashed expensives/services enough and it’s still in the red. So he might be getting replaced soon with someone worse.
Reuters has previously reported that Trump is planning to kill a $7,500 consumer tax credit for electric vehicle purchases
Noooo! My friends just bought EVs and they’re gonna be so smug if I don’t get the credit!
Clearly the way to bring down the price of EVs must be to tariff the import ones and get rid of tax credits on all of them…right? Right?
You catch more flies with vinegar.
Whatever oil wants, oil gets.
After paying Trump millions, yeah
Exclusive: Trump does stupid shit. more at 11.
usps should go on strike if this happens
Keep in mind, this is a new Gilded Age. Trump would most certainly call in the Pinkertons for some good ol’ fashioned strike breaking.
My money is on USPS employees, they are a different breed. Also a significant number of them are veterans.
Not an option for most, I’d wager. Federal employees are free to unionize, however it is a felony crime for a federal employee to strike against the government. Furthermore, it’s a felony to even assert that this is right you have, or to join an organization which asserts that right. The government’s HR department, the Office of Personnel Management, is able to bar any person who violates these provisions from federal employment for life.
Laws more or less to this effect have been on the books since the 40s and 50s, but the issue came to a head in the early 80s when thousands of air traffic controllers went on strike against the FAA after contract negotiations fell through. Reagan ordered the controllers back to work, and, when they refused, summarily fired them. Where they couldn’t be replaced be scabs, he activated the military to fill in, citing national security. According to the last article I read, of the 13,000 striking employees, 11,000 were fired and barred from future employment (though I think Clinton rolled some of that back in the 90s).
Considering it’s clear that the GOP benefits from government dysfunction, and does everything they can to erode public faith in institutions, striking postal workers would be a gift served on a silver platter for them. Trump will giddily fire every last one of the strikers, be praised for being a big strong man who doesn’t negotiate with plebs, and the postal service will be de facto shutter, even if it still exists in as diminished a form as they can get away with while still satisfying whatever requirements there are to have such an institution.
Obviously striking always carries risk, but asking someone to almost certainly throw away their livelihoods for a course of action that will likely only accelerate Trump et al.'s goals is unreasonable.
I can’t say watching red wisconsin counties get fucked hard by Trump doing the thing everyone expected him to do isn’t satisfying
What’s the connection here to Wisconsin directly?
This is the corporation that got one of the two main contracts to create the electric mail carriers
I remember reading Dante’s Inferno for the first time. I’m glad to be reminded of that.
I really don’t understand why money is so much more important to these people than not fucking over the environment.
But I guess you don’t get stinking rich by thinking about anything other than money. The concept of a wider world must really be foreign to these cunts.
Maybe a few more assassins are in order.
Controlled hvac systems wherever they go, travel to anywhere on the planet to golf at your desired temperature.
USPS employees love it.
“May.”
I kind of wish someone was keeping track of speculative “news articles” like this and holding them accountable when they don’t come to fruition. There should be some reputational cost for making things up and spreading rumors.
