WASHINGTON — A Biden administration plan to create a “green” fleet of postal autos has churned out simply 250 electrical mail vans in simply over two years — after shelling out taxpayer funds meant to construct hundreds — leaving Republicans raging on the multibillion-dollar “boondoggle.”
The almost $10 billion challenge — which known as for greater than 35,000 battery-powered US Postal Service (USPS) autos to be accomplished by September 2028 — was funded partly by $3 billion in funding from former President Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Discount Act.
As of this month, the challenge is effectively delayed regardless of taxpayers forking over $1.7 billion — prompting Capitol Hill Republicans to attempt to rescind the remaining almost $1.3 billion earmarked from the IRA.
“Biden’s multi-billion-dollar EV fleet for the USPS is lost in the mail and more than $1 billion is postmarked to order more,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) informed The Submit.
“I am working to cancel the order and return the money to the sender, the American people. The rescissions package is a great start, but Congress must keep its foot on the pedal and make DOGE a lifestyle by stamping out waste like this on a regular basis.”
The transfer comes after former Postmaster Basic Louis DeJoy stepped down earlier this 12 months, passing off the company’s EV embarrassment to his successor, David Steiner, whose new job turned official Monday.
Wisconsin-based Oshkosh, a protection contractor, agreed to be paid $2.6 billion by the USPS to offer the 35,000 autos — however the Washington Submit reported late final 12 months that simply 93 battery-powered electrical autos (BEVs) had been prepared by November 2024, regardless that 3,000 had been anticipated by that date.
Oshkosh’s mail truck manufacturing has struggled to clear quite a few engineering hurdles, together with points with airbag calibration and through leak testing, which resulted in “water [pouring] out as if [the vehicles’] oversize windows had been left open in a storm.”
A senior government at Oshkosh tried to alert USPS concerning the manufacturing issues in 2022, however was blocked by their superiors.
“This is the bottom line: We don’t know how to make a damn truck,” one individual concerned with the manufacturing course of informed the Washington Submit.
Michigan-based Morgan Olson, a earlier contractual associate of USPS, had tried and didn’t win the bid to supply the BEVs in February 2024.
Throughout a gathering between DeJoy, postal officers and Morgan Olson executives, the postmaster normal lamented the standing of “a production plant in South Carolina,” apparently referring to the Oshkosh truck manufacturing facility, a supply who attended the assembly revealed to The Submit.
However DeJoy later added that he was “in the parcel delivery business, not the vehicle manufacturing business,” the supply continued.
On the time, Oshkosh’s Spartanburg manufacturing unit may produce only one mail truck per day, with firm information exhibiting that that they had anticipated to be producing upwards of 80 autos every day.
The associated fee per truck to the protection contractor was pegged at $77.692 for 28,195 electrical autos, in response to The Washington Submit.
In December 2023, USPS put out a name for automobile suppliers that might present “at least 12,000 battery-electric” mail vans by October 2025, together with “at least 1,500 internal combustion engine” vans beginning in October 2024.
A rep for Oshkosh referred inquiries to USPS however confirmed the producer nonetheless has an lively contract with the company for electrical autos.
“Modernization of the Postal Service’s delivery fleet is part of the organization’s $40 billion investment strategy to upgrade and improve the USPS processing, transportation, and delivery networks,” a USPS spokesperson stated.
“The Postal Service has placed orders for 51,500 next generation delivery vehicles (NGDVs), of which 35,000 are Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV). More than 1,000 NGDVs have been received to date, of which more than 250 are BEV,” the rep added.
“Additionally, the Postal Service has ordered 9,250 Ford E-Transit electric vehicles, of which nearly 8,000 have been received. Deployment continues to expand to sites across the country in accordance with the rollout of our new delivery network.”
The Biden administration had been dedicated USPS to buying “100% electric” postal autos beginning in 2026, nevertheless it stays to be seen whether or not Republicans will withdraw the funding for the inexperienced fleet challenge.
The transition of USPS autos to electrical energy from gasoline autos — a central pillar of Biden’s environmental agenda — has been stalled nearly from the outset.
Professional estimates challenge that the broader set of environmental provisions included within the Inflation Discount Act may price taxpayers upwards of $1 trillion in the course of the decade following the invoice’s passage.
The brand new, predominantly electrical autos are supposed to substitute the antiquated fleet of Grumman Lengthy Life Autos, which date to 1987 and are costly to take care of, loud, fuel-inefficient, and have been identified at occasions to burst into flame.
The miniscule variety of autos which were produced by Oshkosh are additionally a small fraction of the 60,000 complete “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles,” powered by a mixture of battery-electric and different power sources, that USPS is ready to buy from the agency.
The Authorities Accountability Workplace, a non-partisan taxpayer accountability company, recognized USPS in a February 2025 report as having “high risk” monetary viability as a result of the company “still cannot fully fund its current level of services and financial obligations.”
In current months, Trump has floated the risk of merging USPS with the Division of Commerce, citing USPS losses of an astonishing $9.5 billion in fiscal 12 months 2024.
“[USPS has] been just a tremendous loser for this country, tremendous amounts of money they’ve lost,” the president informed reporters in February.
“We want to have a post office that works well and doesn’t lose massive amounts of money, and we’re thinking about doing that, and will be a form of a merger, but it’ll remain the Postal Service, and I think it’ll operate a lot better than it has been over the years.”
With the 250th anniversary of the founding of the US Submit Workplace by the Second Continental Congress approaching on July 26, the newly-appointed Steiner will inherit the tall activity of modernizing USPS whereas its EV program continues to tread water.
