Oshkosh builds many heavy vehicles for the U.S. Military, b'gosh.
Posted on 04/11/2025 3:36:56 PM PDT by Twotone
In three years, the project has managed to deliver 93 out of 55,000 vehicles.
Return to sender.
That's the message two Republican lawmakers have regarding the Biden's administration's $3 billon contract for 55,000 electric postal trucks.
That's enough to replace a quarter of the USPS fleet. So far, the Wisconsin-based defense contractor Oshkosh has delivered a whopping 93 vehicles.
At at that rate, they should be done by the time we open the first post office on Mars.
Par for the course for any government EV initiative. As are the reported cost overruns. Fortunately, we've entered the DOGE age. And two members of the caucus — Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Representative Michael Cloud (R-Texas) — are demanding your money back with the "Return to Sender Act."
The act seeks to rescind the entirety of the $3 billion, allocated under the Biden administration’s 2022 “Inflation Reduction Act.”
That's the same IRA Kamala Harris loved to brag about on the 2024 campaign trail. After all, she cast the tiebreaking Senate vote to pass it. And now she doesn't mind admitting that the whole thing is really just a backdoor enactment of the Green New Deal, which pushes for a massive shift to zero-emission transport.
The agreement with Oshkosh called for an initial order of 50,000 electric delivery trucks over a three-year period that started in 2022, meaning they’re way behind schedule, with less than 0.2% delivered by late 2024.
And here we thought EVs were more efficient.
“Biden’s EV postal fleet is lost in the mail," said Ernst, who is also DOGE Caucus chair. "The order needs to be canceled with the unspent money returned to sender, the taxpayers. I am defunding this billion-dollar boondoggle to stamp out waste in Washington. Tax dollars should always be treated with first-class priority.”
Cloud echoed these sentiments, highlighting reports suggesting that the price per truck has jumped from $55,000 to over $70,000.
Oshkosh is believed to be struggling with the production of the electric Postal Service vehicles, with insiders claiming the contractor is uncertain it can build the trucks effectively under the terms of the former Biden government’s contract. Furthermore, rising costs have compounded the project’s delays.
The Washington Post reported that Oshkosh’s CEO expressed satisfaction with the project’s status, stating the company is “really happy where we are.” However, internal sources revealed challenges, with one individual commenting, “We don’t know how to build a damn truck.”
A USPS spokesperson defended the initiative, stating that fleet modernization is central to the Postal Service's “Delivering for America” plan — a 2021 strategy to revamp the struggling USPS with new tech and a greener fleet to meet federal emission cuts by 2030.
The USPS reiterated the commitment to environmentally sustainable vehicles, aligning with financial and operational considerations, and affirmed that deliveries of new vehicles remain on schedule.
As the “Return to Sender Act” progresses, it will serve as a focal point for discussions on fiscal responsibility and the role of oversight in government-funded initiatives. This fight isn’t just about mail trucks — it’s a test case for whether Biden-era green spending can survive a new wave of Republican oversight, especially with the 2026 midterms looming.
I thought Oshkosh was a clothier for children.
Did Oshkosh by gosh pay Biden up front? They must be pissed.
“Return to Sender”... Bwahahahaaa!!
Why didn’t a company that had experience building electric vehicles get the contract?
Does Biden have to give his 10% back?
Oshkosh builds many heavy vehicles for the U.S. Military, b'gosh.
“I thought Oshkosh was a clothier for children.”
They build vehicles for the military.
I like driving up to the pump...filling up and paying....all in 5 minutes at the most.
And I don't worry about it bursting into flames while I'm asleep.
bttt
“Why didn’t a company that had experience building electric vehicles get the contract?”
Most likely because they couldn’t find one that despised Trump enough.
thank goodness ... i’ve been waiting for this cancellation ...
mail trucks take a beating, and there’s no one-off EVs would ever be able to stand up to the frequent starts and stops, gravel surfaces, cobblestones and potholes, hauling a payload of up to 2,000 lb (910 kg) for decades ...
the current trucks, the Grumman Long Life Vehicle (LLV), were put into service in 1986, with the last ones built in 1994, and have been in service for 40 years, lasting at least a decade longer than their maximum projected lifespan ...
my rural route carrier, a wonderful young Christian woman, was ecstatic when her unreliable, beat-to-krap LLV was recently replaced with a Mercedes van that has heat, AC, doors that work and the whole nine yards ...
Municipal and school district EV busses [partially paid for by the Feds, natch] have been an unmitigated disaster across the board ... almost all of them have now been permanently parked in boneyards across the nation due to unreliability, lack of repair parts, lack of service technicians, and the fact that most manufacturers have gone out of business ...
still, they served their real purpose: their popup manufacturers got wealthy from Fed funds and kicked back the appropriate amounts to politicians in one form or another ...
Our shop has the contract to keep the local post offices 90’s era LLVs (Long Life Vehicles) running.
They should just order more of them, exactly as originally designed. Stupid easy to fix with readily available parts.
Same company or almost the same name?
“”I am defunding this billion-dollar boondoggle to stamp out waste in Washington.””
HOW does she do that?
looks to me like those would make some real beastly mail delivery trucks ... oh yeah, can’t be diesel, have to be EV ...
(In three years, the project has managed to deliver 93 out of 55,000 vehicles.)
WOW
How did Amazon get a fleet of ev delivery trucks and the USPS is still scratching their head?
One is a private business and the other is a government business
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