Graphic by edrive.org
Will the U.S. Congress try to help the Post Office deliver email by giving it money to buy electric vehicles? Well, maybe not, but this article sheds some light on one possible future for the Postal Service and electric vehicles.
According to HR4399, a bill now before Congress, the US Postal Service fleet is an ideal test bed for large scale electrification because of its predictable routes, frequent stops and starts, range of weather and terrain conditions, and high visibility. Post offices could provide the public easy access to EV charging stations with its more than 37,000 brick-and-mortar facilities located throughout the US. At the same time, this new mission could help provide the Post Office with a "salvation strategy" to counter diminishing demand for its traditional services. Further, electric postal vehicles could feed excess storage capacity back into the grid during the protracted periods of idleness they experience during the parts of the day when the letter carriers are preparing the mail for route delivery. The Postal Service currently spends almost $3 billion per year on fuel and maintenance, but the cost of electric vehicles would still require extraordinary financing arrangements for USPS. One scenario envisions the Postal Service being given authority to issue bonds, to be paid from the savings realized by the use of the energy efficient fleet. The chart above was developed by evworld.com based on the details of the bill (HR4399) now before the House of Representatives.
Whatever the final outcome, it appears that the future development of the electric fleet will see an intimate involvement between government, the business and scientific communities, and gthe public at large.
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