The Postal Service’s new delivery vehicles aren’t going to win a beauty contest. They're tall and ungainly, with outsize windshields, thick bumpers and duck-bill hoods.

The Postal Service’s new delivery vehicles aren’t going to win a beauty contest. They’re tall and ungainly. The windshields are vast. Their hoods resemble a duck bill. Their bumpers are enormous.

“You can tell that (the designers) didn’t have appearance in mind,” postal worker Avis Stonum said.

Odd appearance aside, the first handful of Next Generation Delivery Vehicles that rolled onto postal routes in August in Athens, Georgia, are getting rave reviews from letter carriers accustomed to cantankerous older vehicles that lack modern safety features and are prone to breaking down — and even catching fire.

Within a few years, the fleet will have expanded to 60,000, most of them electric models, serving as the Postal Service’s primary delivery truck from Maine to Hawaii.

  • Fester@lemm.eeEnglish
    921·
    3 months ago

    The new trucks also feature something common in most cars for more than six decades: air conditioning. And that’s key for drivers in the Deep South, the desert Southwest and other areas with scorching summers.

    “I promise you, it felt like heaven blowing in my face,” Stonum said of her first experience working in an air-conditioned truck.

    Good.

    • BigDaddySlim@lemmy.worldEnglish
      42·
      3 months ago

      I’ve used the old trucks in New Mexico, 140°F in the trucks wasn’t uncommon in the summer. It was a relief to get out of it and cool off a bit. AC will be great.

          • ripcord@lemmy.world
            3·
            3 months ago

            At 140 degrees you would be able to last about 10 minutes before hitting hyperthermia; not much longer for death.

  • vortic@lemmy.world
    26·
    3 months ago

    Honestly, as replacements for their legacy, these look spot on. Modern versions of what came before. I’m so glad the postal workers are receiving new, safer equipment.

  • Hossenfeffer@feddit.ukEnglish
    25·
    3 months ago

    I mean, sure, it’s no looker, but if it makes mail carriers’ lives easier then that’s a win. Will probably be ‘iconic’ in a decade or two.

  • GooberEar@lemmy.wtfEnglish
    14·
    3 months ago

    Sort of weird looking by current standards. I don’t know how long it will be before I see one of these. I live in a rural area, and our local USPS seems to use personal vehicles I guess? I don’t really know for sure, but they don’t drive the standard white and blue box that USPS drivers had when I lived in more urban/suburban settings.

    • qisope@lemmy.world
      5·
      3 months ago

      same where I am - delivery vehicle is an ancient, busted right-hand drive jeep. I don’t imagine I’ll be seeing one of these new vehicles any time soon

    • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
      3·
      3 months ago

      Mpg on those old ones is like 9. Using those things in a rural area is just a waste of money. $3 to deliver to less than 10 customers for gas alone?

    • TotesIllegit@lemmy.worldEnglish
      61·
      3 months ago

      If lurking in the USPS subreddit for a few years had taught me anything, it’s that some really love the LLVs and some just hate the platypus that’s replacing it, as it was often called.

  • TheTimeKnife@lemmy.world
    8·
    3 months ago

    Really happy we are upgrading these finally, the previous vehicles had aged out and put postal employees in danger.

  • TurboWafflz@lemmy.world
    91·
    3 months ago

    Huh, in my area recently they’ve been using just normal Mercedes vans with the Mercedes logo replaced by the USPS logo so I had assumed that was just the new standard USPS vehicle now but I guess not, interesting.

  • Pacmanlives@lemmy.world
    6·
    3 months ago

    Well it’s ugly as shit but it’s super functional so I really can’t complain. Some people thought the AC-130 was ugly, fat and slow till it shelled the fuck out of them

  • Ooops@feddit.org
    61·
    3 months ago

    So this is what happens when a Fiat Multipla develops into its final form in all its glorious ugliness…

  • DominusOfMegadeus
    4·
    3 months ago

    It looks like the car that SpongeBob would drive if that were a thing that happened in reality. I love it so much.

    • Corkyskog
      2·
      3 months ago

      Nah, they use vans for more package dense areas. They are rolling out electric versions of those too eventually.