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.

  • vortic@lemmy.world
    18·
    2 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.

  • TurboWafflz@lemmy.world
    81·
    2 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.

    • TotesIllegit@lemmy.worldEnglish
      61·
      2 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
    5·
    2 months ago

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

  • Grass@sh.itjust.works
    3·
    2 months ago

    oh fuck what a beauty. I want one of these in cozy coupe theme but the old one without the eyes. kids these days have it rough.

  • Pacmanlives@lemmy.world
    2·
    2 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

  • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    2 months ago

    Glad to hear they’re mostly electric. A mail truck is an ideal use a for EV, it ought to save the USPS a ton of money