88
votes
United States postal service debuts long-awaited new mail truck
Link information
This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.
- Title
- USPS' long-awaited new mail truck makes its debut to rave reviews from carriers
- Published
- Sep 12 2024
- Word count
- 849 words
They're so goofy looking but ... I kind of love it.
Agreed! I nearly laughed out loud when I saw it. However, these vehicles seem purposefully designed for their function. The tall windows and oversized doors seem perfect for safety, visibility, and ease of delivery.
Basically, if it helps mail carriers out, the goofiness will be unique and endearing. I can't wait till they come to my area!
Also mail trucks rarely get over 45 mph so aerodynamics just aren’t much of a concern.
Exactly! Form follows function is a generally good design principle and it seems to apply here. It makes me happy!
A few months ago I saw a video on why they were designed so weirdly. It's all about meeting a bunch of very specific safety/visibility requirements they had.
I like the looks as well.
It's the side view mirrors that I am sad about.
I get that they have 360-degree cameras, blind-spot monitoring, collision sensors and anti-lock brakes... but why make the side view mirrors so small?
Per the article, the bigger mirrors got knocked out of alignment all the time. With full camera coverage, they're less necessary.
Yeah, but they are so much higher now!
Real heroes wear shorts and drive these things! You don't have to look awesome to be awesome haha
Comment box
This is a hilarious-looking vehicle.
It also seems like an extremely safe vehicle. Look at that super low hood height --- not running over any children with that thing. The visibility is just too good. SUV manufacturers should be mandated to take similar approaches.
Nice that the vehicles are all going to be electric pretty soon.
I honestly kind of like it. It still feels like a postal van, which gives me some nice rose covered glasses remembering my family's mailman growing up (the same man handed me my kindergarten report card and college admission letters!)
Well that's g...the bare minimum.
Also, pointing out that they are missing on the Grumman feels mean, since those things didn't exist when it was designed.
In my wilder dreams I’d also outfit the postal service trucks with a suite of sensors and cameras so the USPS can start to collect and provide open street data on par with Google Maps. They’re driving around anyway, why not collect the data for GIS and street view and road conditions, and every other thing?
Stick the sensor suite on police squad cars too. If part of the job involves a lot of driving around we might as well get as much out of the drive time as possible.
Can you imagine the uproar of a federal government vehicle recording 360 video as it drives down every street, 6 days a week?
Or, as sibling comment muses, a police car doing the same?
In this country?
Never gonna happen.
:edit: I hadn’t read the article, my apologies, I didn’t realize these DO have extensive cameras beyond just backup cameras. I wonder how long recordings are preserved and where. (If recording at all, rather than just being “live” only).
Also, unrelated but another pie in the sky thought: it’d be cool if all the charging stations installed were available to the public (particularly in more rural areas)
I kind of love this idea. I often feel the USPS has a lot of under-utilized potential. This would be a great way to make the data more accessible, and probably far more accurate/up-to-date.
It is probably done to really drive through the point how outdated the current fleet of vehicles is.
What other safety features would you prefer it have?
Asking because I don’t own new cars and that all sounds great to me, and I just don’t know of many other features. I’ve driven brand-new cars with those features, and they were nice to have.
(Admittedly, some of the "extra" features I can think of, like lane assist or adaptive cruise control, just annoyed me more than I found them useful, especially in cars where I couldn't turn those features on and off very easily.)
Well that's basically all standard, if not legally mandated. Saying your vehicle is great because it has airbags is...not really something that will get people excited. Airbags have been mandatory for 26 years. ABS has been mandatory for 12 years.
Those things are mandatory on consumer vehicles, not commercial vehicles. Generally, delivery trucks don't have airbags, buses don't have seatbelts, semis don't have backup cameras, the list goes on.
I get that, but again, what other safety features would you prefer it have?
The only thing I can think of is having a rearview mirror that doubles as a display for a camera. On some new trucks, they have an actual rearview mirror, but when they're towing something, or the mirror's view is blocked by something in the back seats, etc, the mirror instead becomes a display surface for a rear camera. (It's a different rear camera from the backup camera as well, typically placed higher on the truck's body, so it can view over most towed trailers.)
It looks like the NGDV will actually have a rear window though, so maybe a rearview mirror that pulls double duty as a camera display is overkill for them.
I mean, if it was my job to drive around in that truck every day and I found out it’s gonna have those features I’d be pretty excited.
I'd been wondering whatever happened with these. Thanks for the update!
I’m going to miss being able to know my mail was delivered by the sound of that tiny four-banger struggling to get itself off the curb, but these seem neat.
I wonder what’s going to happen to the old trucks? My understanding is they’re always scrapped for parts and never sold off, but I wonder if that will change now that they’re being replaced?
I really don’t want one personally, but I can imagine a lot of funny and cool things people could do with them. I wonder if you could modify it into a mini-camper?
I'm sure there'll be a bumper crop of youtuber modification videos for awhile at least. Stock they seem basically worthless (9mpg!) but I'm sure someone will throw an LS in one, probably a Tesla motor in another.
The Grumman LLV only weighs 3000lb, which is (sadly) light by consumer vehicle standards these days. It is, however, almost the same exact weight as a Honda Civic. Let's see a Civic SI engine in one of those.
LLVtec.
Add an anime wrap for good measure, because all cars should have those.
It's bonkers to me that a 2.5L engine is considered "tiny" in the US. My first car (a Peugeot 205GL in the UK) had a 1.1L engine that produced 54 HP.
The 2.5L and slightly rarer 2.2L engines used in the LLV are actually on the larger side for inline-fours. The only inline-fours I'm aware of that are larger than that, and produced around the same time or later than the LLV, are the Porsche 944 and 968, which had 3.0L inline-fours.
I'm sure there are others from around that time, or even more recently, as well. Perhaps from BMW? Or, if we disregard "inline" for a second, Subaru? There are also almost certainly even larger inline-fours if you look further back than the 80s too.
So I think 2.5L is near the top end of displacement for regular inline-fours in regular cars.
Of course, that doesn't change the fact that America is plagued with oversized trucks and SUVs, many of which (especially from the American manufacturers) only have V6 and V8 (or even only V8) engine options in 4.0L+ displacements. 2.5L is kind of tiny compared to that.
Actually, after writing this comment, I was curious if anyone had data on the average displacement of vehicles in the United States. It turns out the EPA keeps track of that sort of thing:
https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1224-february-7-2022-average-horsepower-reaches-all-time-high-model
And the full report:
https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-12/420r23033.pdf
In 2022, that average engine displacement for gasoline vehicles in the United States was 171 cubic inches, or 2.8 liters. 55% of gasoline vehicle engines are four-cylinders. (Page 47)
The report goes on to say:
Based on that, we can do some math:
An average of 35-cubic-inches-per-cylinder multiplied by four cylinders is 140 cubic inches, or just about 2.3L.
So 2.5L really is on the higher end for four-cylinder engines, even in the United States.
I know this is a good upgrade, but it's almost bittersweet. The old LLV's were essentially ambient noise, quietly in the background throughout my entire life, and it's going to be sad to see them go.
Too bad USPS isn't allowed to auction them off. Did you know that the USPS LLV's don't have VINs? They're also the only vehicle legally allowed to drive without a license plate at all times in all 50 states!
I don't know if I'll still be an RCA by the time these launch at my station, but goddamn I'll be happy to have something that works. The vehicle currently assigned to my route is always breaking down, making for long days sitting waiting for them to bring me a substitute. They inevitably "fix" it, and the process starts over again. I already suck at the job so a bad vehicles doesn't help me get any better.
Why is a 2016 era Trump appointee who had mail sorting machines removed in time for mail-in voting still Postmaster General?
He is not a Trump appointee.
sigh
Defacto
President Biden has replaced members of that board.
Why haven't they voted DeJoy out?
DeJoy was doing a great job of tearing down the post office under Trump, but seems to be a political weathervane and is doing a decent job of modernization under Biden.
Maybe not so great
https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-mail-ballots-voting-postal-service-985dd6e483fb6dc593d83255b11a9d0a
According to that link,
What’s the problem?
Glad they made the overhaul, just piping in wishing they had made it a little more friendly looking. Kind of like the Rivian Delivery Van. We can live in a Pixar movie if we want, give me round headlights!!!
Honestly I think these will grow friendly-looking over time. I already love their silliness.
I love the Rivian lights but there are a ton around here so maybe I'm just used to it.
I had a family member deliver mail for 20 years and they complained for 15 of those that the LLV was terrible in the snow. They opted to buy their own delivery vehicle so they could finish their route more safely on the winter days. Northern New England has never been kind to these vehicles.
I would how this new one does in snow.
Is it just me or is it huge compared to the Grumman? Did it need to be that big? Has mail volume increased that much?
I think that’s due to packages and boxes becoming much more prevalent in the mail now. So yeah, the average annual mail volume, in both senses of the word, has probably increased sharply over the last forty years.
Comment box
It is 6 feet longer, 10 inches wider, 30 inches taller, and a little more than twice as heavy at around 5600-6700 lbs (battery?).
It probably doesn't need to be that large:
One pound? What a strange coincidence. As usual, emissions regulations are encouraging manufacturers to build big.
But the design specification asked for a 1500 lb payload capacity compared to 1000 lb for the Grumman. People aren't necessarily mailing more letters, but it wouldn't surprise me if they're shipping heavier objects on average.
The population is also substantially larger than in the 80s. Like 100,000,000 more people. So maybe mail volumes have increased in absolute quantities.
Given the safety features on this thing, I'm not extremely concerned about it being a bit larger. I do like compact vehicles though, they are safer to pedestrians.
Lot's more packages from online shops these days, I am guessing.
Yup, modern safety features simply take up more space. Things like crumble zones, side collision protection, etc.
From my understanding postal workers have been given significantly longer routes to travel and service with fewer people, so being able to carry more weight could easily be just for the higher volume of mail it would need to carry.
While it's ugly as sin, I appreciate the improved safety the giant windshield will provide through better visibility. Also, the lack of fumes. My goodness, those little mail trucks have no business polluting neighborhoods as much as they do -- fumes and noise, alike. It ain't pretty, but it's still a huge win in my book.
You have to hope that this is good for the electric vehicle industry in the united states too.
Electric drive is a great change for all the start-stop short distances they have to do