Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5
Government employees should be driving their own vehicles and getting reimbursed per mile like everyone else. Letter carriers should be driving EVs where appropriate. If they too were using personal vehicles (like they do on rural routes) and getting reimbursed per mile, then their incentive would be to purchase a vehicle most appropriate to their route. I suppose certain large capacity vehicles might be necessary for the route and provided by the post office.
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Well rurals using private vehicles is going away too. They are the ones getting right hand drive Mercedes Metris Van's assigned their routes. The PO pays something like.$.45/mile and so they see a rural route maybe going 30-70 miles a day and figure even a leased Mercedes would save money. It probably also seems more professional than the average 25 year old minivan or Buick these carriers are using.
Contract routes are a different story but they are small potatoes compared to rural carriers as far as numbers go.
I was wrong in earlier posts. While Oshkosh partnered with Ford to build their winning prototype, they won the contract on their own. They can now go with completely different suppliers or build things in house although it looks like they are trying to make a deal with Ford, both companies are silent.
That could mean a just about anything is possible with the EV powertrain. Maybe ole Musk will find it in his heart to help fix the Post Office and not only build a reliable EV powertrain for it, but also make it self driving so the carrier can just put the mail in the box. No more deadheads on walking routes either as the car could meet you at the end of the block. It could also follow along onbthe curb of walking routes so the carrier could do large parcel volumes working out of the side and still be delivering regular mail. A flamethrower for dogs would also be great...