USPS is doubling its initial order of electric mail delivery trucks

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Ten thousand battery-electric vehicles will be part of the initial order from the United States Postal Service. It is a notable number considering the agency's resistance to increasing the number of EVs in its future delivery fleet.

The postal service said it would purchase 165,000 next-generation mail trucks, but only 10 percent of them will be battery-electric. The USPS decided there was no legal reason to change its plans despite President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats urging the agency to increase the number of EVs.

The postal service says it will increase its initial order of EVs from 5,000 to 10,019 because it makes sense from an operational and financial perspective.

We owe it to our carriers and the communities we serve to provide safer, more efficient vehicles to fulfill our universal service obligation to deliver 161 million addresses in all climates and topographies six days per week, according to the Postmaster General.

The question is whether the USPS will continue to purchase EV's. If the agency follows through on the full 165,000 vehicle purchase, it will need to acquire 6,500 additional electric vehicles in order to meet the 10 percent threshold.

The postal service has lost more than $90 billion since 2007, and Congress approved a $50 billion rescue package. DeJoy wants to cut billions of dollars in funding and slower first-class mail delivery as new standards.

DeJoy, a top Trump donor, has been at odds with environmentalists over the need toelectrify the agency's fleet. The USPS unveiled its next-generation mail truck in February of 2021. The mail trucks that have been in service for more than two decades were built by defense contractor Grumman.

In congressional testimony last year, DeJoy argued that the agency didn't have the funds to purchase more EVs. The Environmental Protection Agency and White House Council on Environmental Quality sent letters to the postal service to reconsider their plans. President Joe Biden wants to use the power of the government to purchase electric vehicles, upgrade federal buildings, and shift to cleaner forms of electricity in order to make the federal government carbon neutral by the year 2050.

USPS may change its tune on EVs. The EV manufacturing process, supply chain disruptions, and the global chip shortage make it difficult to meet the demand. The new electric trucks won't be on the road until at least 2023.