Mail truck emissions get signed, sealed, delivered

The United States Postal Service (USPS) is trialling seven new electric vans to clean up its delivery routes

USPS van

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has started to take delivery of seven new electric Ford E-450-based vans for delivering mail in California.

Motiv Power Systems is providing the vehicles, which will be used to trial a zero emission mail service in Central Valley – most of the immediate project benefits are aimed for the San Joaquin Valley, a relatively poor area with some of the highest air pollution in the US.

As well as benefitting the local environment, the vans are expected to slash fuel and maintenance costs.

This could make a significant difference to the fleet – currently, USPS operates around 190,000 vehicles, of which roughly 142,000 have been in use since 1986 and have an average fuel economy of less than 10mpg.

Jim Castelaz, Motiv CEO. “Our all-electric EPIC chassis have accumulated 500,000 real-world miles and are ideally suited to the USPS vehicle route characteristics. We’re thrilled that USPS has chosen Motiv to help meet their sustainability goals.”

Royal Mail started trials of nine all-electric vans in London last year.

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