The brand new U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Subsequent Era Supply Automobiles (NGDVs) have delighted drivers since hitting the street in Georgia final month, the Associated Press reports. However given the $5 billion funding required, taxpayers is likely to be a tad much less enthusiastic.
USPS prides itself on being “usually self-funded” by way of income from the sale of stamps, merchandise, and companies. As laudable and unusual as this basic self-funding is for federal businesses, USPS received $3 billion from the Inflation Discount Act. USPS additionally has a pension system with a $50 billion unfunded legal responsibility for which the taxpayer could finally need to foot the invoice, Cause‘s Eric Boehm explains.
Altogether, USPS expects its whole funding in new automobiles to succeed in $9.6 billion. Contemplating a good portion of this funding comes out of the U.S. Division of the Treasury (learn: from taxpayers current and future), the general public is entitled to scrutinize how this cash was spent.
Of the 106,000 new supply automobiles planned for purchase by 2028, 60,000 are NGDVs. Although precise costs are troublesome to determine, the March 2022 order of fifty,000 was valued at $2.98 billion. This brings the per-unit price of the NGDV to $59,600.
The duck-like NGDV is produced by Oshkosh Defense, the identical firm that manufactures the a lot scarier-looking Medium Caliber Weapon System, an armored fight car armed with a 30 mm turret. Oshkosh’s NGDV might be phased into USPS’s fleet over the following 4 years to interchange the enduring truck that has comprised its fleet since 1987: the Grumman Long Life Vehicle (GLLV), produced by the army contractor in partnership with Common Motors, Poveco, and American Motor Company.
Do you know the brand new NGDV comes with built-in security and ergonomic options designed to boost each driver and pedestrian security, whereas additionally making supply routes extra environment friendly?
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— Oshkosh Protection (@OshkoshDefense) August 14, 2024
The Oshkosh NGDVs boast options missing within the GLLV, akin to airbags, anti-lock brakes, collision sensors, and blind-spot monitoring—options which were customary for years in fashionable automobiles. Oshkosh says it received the $3 billion “competitively-awarded” contract for 50,000 NGDVs in 2021. However evaluating the per-unit value to industry-standard alternate options, Oshkosh should have a Twenty first-century helicopter father or mother definition of competitors.
In March 2022, Postmaster Common Louis DeJoy initially deliberate for 10 p.c of the NGDVs to be electrical, because the USPS illustrates in a helpful graphic. Following lawsuits led to by the attorneys basic of 16 states, in addition to the Middle for Organic Variety, Earthjustice, CleanAirNow Kansas Metropolis, and Sierra Membership California, DeJoy elevated the portion of electrical automobiles to over 50 p.c by July 2022. By December 2022 that figure had elevated to 75 p.c.
Electrical automobiles are about 17 p.c costlier than comparable inner combustion engine alternate options, in line with automotive analysis firm Kelley Blue Book. Accordingly, if the Oshkosh Protection contract had been up to date to mirror the elevated proportion of costlier electrical variants of its NGDVs, the whole worth could be nearer to $3.31 billion, making the common value per NGDV $66,200.
The producer’s steered retail value (MSRP) of the 2025 Mercedes-Benz e-Sprinter, the likes of that are utilized in FedEx’s personal fleet, is $61,180—$5,000 lower than the worth of the Oshkosh NGDV. The non-electric Mercedes-Benz Sprinter had an MSRP of $42,430 in 2021, per Kelley Blue Book, when the USPS-Oshkosh deal was made. That is $17,000 lower than the NGDV per-unit value of $59,600.
Regardless of the way you slice it, the USPS-NGDV program has been an costly boondoggle. It has dragged on for almost a decade since its inception in July 2014, whereas the market capitalizations of personal rivals like UPS, FedEx, and DHL have grown. Because it seems, you need not outsource car manufacturing to the military-industrial advanced to ship mail.
