The United States Postal Service (USPS) is upgrading its delivery fleet, replacing decades-old trucks and introducing electric vehicles.
However, the transition has proven more expensive than expected to taxpayers, according to Taxpayers Protection Alliance‘s President David Williams.
Speaking with Fox Baltimore on Thursday, Williams criticized the agency’s ability to secure competitive contracts while noting that — on average — USPS vehicles are “20 to 30 years old.”
“There are about 100,000 postal vehicles on the roads. And they do need to be replaced,” he stated. “I mean, that’s not even a discussion, they do need to be replaced.”
Williams flagged, however, that the post office is “not really good at spending money.”
“They’re not really good with management, and the procurement of these vehicles shows just how bad they are,” the representative added.
David Williams said each EV added to the USPS fleet costs about $23,000 more than a comparable gas-powered vehicle.
“Each electric vehicle is going to cost about $78,000. Now that’s compared to a regular gas vehicle at about $55,000,” he said.
Williams explained that “FedEx is doing the same thing,” as “they’re incorporating a lot of electric vehicles” in their fleet.
However, the courier is paying $61,000 per vehicle, according to him.
“So you see that the post office is paying a lot more for their EVs than a private company. And that’s what I’m concerned about, is that there’s a lot of money being spent,” he concluded.
Late last year, The Washington Post reported that Amazon was preparing to quit its partnership with the USPS by the end of 2026, as it focused on expanding its own delivery network in both the United States and globally.
Amazon, which handles most of its deliveries through its Delivery Service Partners, has teamed up with US EV maker Rivian to add 100,000 electric delivery vans to its fleet by 2030.
The price of the vans sold to Amazon hasn’t been disclosed, though Rivian’s commercial van is available for other commercial clients since early 2025 — with prices starting at $79,900.
Fleet Renovation
The USPS has committed to a $9.6 billion upgrade of its delivery fleet, as of its latest update in December.
It plans to roll out 106,000 new vehicles by 2028, including 45,000 next-generation electric vehicles, built specifically for the postal office, and 21,000 commercial off-the-shelf fully electric vehicles.
This includes a 2022 contract with Oshkosh Defense for 50,000 Next-Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDVs), which has cost nearly $3 billion.
By then, the agency said about 10,000 of these were expected to be battery-electric vehicles (BEVs).
The US Postal Service is also upgrading its facilities by installing charging stations to support its zero-emission electric fleet.
As of last December, the agency had purchased over 14,000 EVs and had 35,000 new vehicles on the road.
According to Justin Glass, the Postal Service’s Fleet Management Senior Director, the “new fleet rollout is proceeding well, aligned with our plan.”
David Williams seems to disagree, however.
According to the President, the agency has been “thinking about this replacement since 2014,” therefore, “they’ve had time to investigate, to look at the best options.”
“And the problem is that a company like FedEx, they’re buying off the shelf, right? They’re just going,” he said, countering, “the post office, they’re going to a company, and they’re kind of reimagining, rebuilding these postal vehicles.”
Williams thinks “therein lies the problem, is that they’re not using the best methods.”
Slow Pace of Production
According to a December report by the New York Post, despite having spent at least $3 billion on Oshkosh-produced vehicles, only 612 of these had been delivered until November 10.
The report suggested that the USPS had a wide variety of Ford E-Transit vans in its delivery fleet, with over 2,000 delivering both mail and packages as of late 2025.
However, over 6,000 of these vans were not deployed because they could not cover all the routes that the specially-designed Oshkosh trucks were built to handle.
Iowa Senate Representative Joni Ernst raised the issue following an inquiry she submitted to the USPS in July — and to which its VP of Government Relations and Public Policy Peter Pastre responded in November.
Between July and November, Oshkosh produced 362 trucks, working out to a rate of between three and four trucks per day.
“Instead of spending another billion dollars on an EV fleet that’s lost in the mail, it’s time to pull the plug on this boondoggle and return the money to sender — the taxpayers,” Ernst stated.
Taxpayers Protection Alliance‘s David Williams agrees with the representative.
“Joni Ernst from Iowa, she’s really the only one that has raised the alarm on this. She said, ‘well, hold on, why are we spending this much? They’re not producing the vehicles,'” he said.
Williams pointed out that, despite the procurement process having been underway for “a number of years” now, “there’s only a couple of thousand new vehicles on the road.”
When asked whether the USPS’s traditional role might be winding down as snail mail declines, he emphasized the agency’s continuing importance in package delivery.
“It’s all about packages and delivering packages,” he noted, adding that “it’s not about delivering first-class mail anymore. Of course, they are, but it’s really these new trucks, these new vehicles are designed for packages because that’s where the business is for the post office.”
