The USPS has flirted with EVs off and on since the 1970s. They've run pilots and prototypes. I remember an AMC-made Jeep body conversion in the 1970s. In the the early 1980s, the infamous ill-fated Commuter Vehicles postal vans went far wide of the USPS's requirements, essentially putting the final nails in CVI's coffin. Also in the early 80s were rather nice boxy prototype postal vehicles built by either AM General or Grumman (I forget which) and based on the VW Rabbit; at least some of these were fitted with an EV drivetrain.
In the early 2000s the USPS had a small and IIRC rather short-lived affair with postal vehicles using Grumman LLV bodies on Ford Ranger EV pickup chassis (the current ICE LLV uses an old Chevrolet S10 chassis design, and gets an excruciating 9mpg). The Ford-based EV LLVs I think were deployed only in California. Maybe Bruce remembers more about these, and will correct any errors I've made. None of these trial programs has ever led to serious EV adoption by the USPS. They seemed to be more window dressing than anything, and I also heard rumors of outright sabotage by their mechanics (this has happened with many corporate EV fleet tests in the past). The USPS wants a $25-35k price tag for this new delivery vehicle. I can't imagine the one described here coming in anywhere near that, especially since it isn't a pure BEV, but rather a true series hybrid, with a small onboard range-extension genset. I may be making too many assumptions, but despite what they say, I don't really think the USPS's top brass want EVs. So I have some doubts that we'll end up with a BEV or even a true hybrid delivering our mail. But we can hope. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
