The U.S. Postal Service is shopping for greater than 9,000 battery-powered supply vans made by Ford Motor as a part of a $10 billion push to impress its getting old fleet.
The Ford E-Transit Battery EVs, which the Postal Service expects to take supply of this December, are a part of plan to impress 75% of the its service vans over the subsequent 5 years, the company stated in an announcement Tuesday.
“We’re transferring ahead with our plans to concurrently enhance our service, cut back our value, develop our income, and enhance the working atmosphere for our staff,” Postmaster Common Louis DeJoy stated within the assertion. “Electrification of our car fleet is now an essential element of those initiatives.”
Along with the 9,250 Ford vans, which will likely be manufactured at a Ford plant in Kansas Metropolis, Missouri, the company stated it was awarding contracts to buy some 14,000 charging stations.
Ford had no speedy remark. Shares of the automaker have been unchanged in aftermarket buying and selling.
The contract marks a turnaround for the postal service, which had introduced in early 2022 that it deliberate to switch its fleet of red-white-and blue supply vans with principally gasoline-fueled fashions made by Oshkosh Corp. That was a blow to President Joe Biden’s local weather agenda and a bid by startup EV maker Workhorse Group Inc., which had competed for the order.
Following outrage from congressional lawmakers and environmentalists, in addition to an infusion of $3 billion in funds from the Biden administration’s signature Inflation Discount Act, the company reversed course in December and unveiled a $10 billion plan to purchase battery-powered automobiles.
That substitute plan means the Postal Service nonetheless might want to buy 9,250 inner combustion engine fashions “to fill the pressing want for automobiles,” it stated. The company expects a “dedication of funds” by 2028 to purchase a complete of 66,230 electrical supply vans as a part of an total addition of 106,000 new automobiles for its supply fleet.
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