January 4, 2023

The USPS Fleet Is Going Electric

Beep, beep: Starting in 2026, the USPS expects all of its new acquisitions to be electric.

Richard B. Levine/Levine Roberts/Zuma

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Forget Dylan in ’65. Get ready for the USPS in ’26.

Last month, the USPS laid out its plan for increasing the proportion of electric vehicles from the 10 percent it initially promised: By 2028, 45,000 of the 60,000 new purpose-build mail trucks will be electric, as will 21,000 of the 46,000 additional “commercial off-the-shelf” vehicles the USPS is purchasing. Starting in 2026, the USPS expects all of its new acquisitions to be electric. The purchases amount to a $9.6 billion investment.

Last year, the United States Postal Service announced that it planned to replace its outdated mail delivery fleet with new, mostly gas-guzzling trucks. There was immediate backlash.

Lawmakers and environmental groups had pushed for the agency to go fully electric, noting that the postal trucks’ short routes and designated nightly parking places were conducive to electric battery charging. USPS said that it didn’t have the funds.

But then the Inflation Reduction Act allocated $3 billion for zero-emission delivery trucks and supporting infrastructure.

“The $3 billion provided by Congress has significantly reduced the risk associated with accelerating the implementation of a nationwide infrastructure necessary to electrify our delivery fleet,” Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said in a statement, adding that the USPS will also cut down on carbon emissions by creating a more efficient delivery network with less air cargo and fewer truck trips.

Beep, beep. A new era of electric mail delivery is on its way.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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