WASHINGTON — A Biden administration plan to create a “green” fleet of postal vehicles has churned out a mere 250 electric mail trucks in just over two years — after shelling out taxpayer funds meant to build thousands — leaving Republicans raging at the multibillion-dollar “boondoggle.”
The nearly $10 billion project — which called for more than 35,000 battery-powered US Postal Service (USPS) vehicles to be completed by September 2028 — was funded in part by $3 billion in funding from former President Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
As of this month, the project is well behind schedule despite taxpayers forking over $1.7 billion — prompting Capitol Hill Republicans to try to rescind the remaining nearly $1.3 billion earmarked from the IRA.
“Biden’s multi-billion-dollar EV fleet for the USPS is lost in the mail and more than $1 billion is postmarked to order more,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) told The Post.
“I am working to cancel the order and return the money to the sender, the American people. The rescissions package is a great start, but Congress must keep its foot on the pedal and make DOGE a lifestyle by stamping out waste like this on a regular basis.”
The move comes after former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy stepped down earlier this year, passing off the agency’s EV embarrassment to his successor, David Steiner, whose new job became official Monday.
Wisconsin-based Oshkosh, a defense contractor, agreed to be paid $2.6 billion by the USPS to provide the 35,000 vehicles — but the Washington Post reported late last year that just 93 battery-powered electric vehicles (BEVs) were ready by November 2024, even though 3,000 were expected by that date.
Oshkosh’s mail truck production has struggled to clear a number of engineering hurdles, including issues with airbag calibration and during leak testing, which resulted in “water [pouring] out as if [the vehicles’] oversize windows had been left open in a storm.”
A senior executive at Oshkosh attempted to alert USPS about the production problems in 2022, but was blocked by their superiors.
“This is the bottom line: We don’t know how to make a damn truck,” one person involved with the manufacturing process told the Washington Post.
Michigan-based Morgan Olson, a previous contractual partner of USPS, had tried and failed to win the bid to produce the BEVs in February 2024.
During a meeting of DeJoy, postal officials and Morgan Olson executives, the postmaster general lamented the status of “a production plant in South Carolina,” apparently referring to the Oshkosh truck manufacturing facility, a source who attended the meeting revealed to The Post.
But DeJoy later added that he was “in the parcel delivery business, not the vehicle manufacturing business,” the source continued.
At the time, Oshkosh’s Spartanburg factory could produce just one mail truck per day, with company records showing that it had expected to be producing upward of 80 vehicles on a daily basis.
The cost per truck to the defense contractor was pegged at $77.692 for 28,195 electric vehicles, according to the Washington Post.
In December 2023, USPS put out a call for vehicle suppliers that could provide “at least 12,000 battery-electric” mail trucks by October 2025, along with “at least 1,500 internal combustion engine” trucks starting in October 2024.
A rep for Oshkosh referred questions to USPS but confirmed the manufacturer still has an active contract with the agency for electric vehicles.
“Modernization of the Postal Service’s delivery fleet is part of the organization’s $40 billion investment strategy to upgrade and improve the USPS processing, transportation, and delivery networks,” a USPS spokesperson said.
“The Postal Service has placed orders for 51,500 next generation delivery vehicles (NGDVs), of which 35,000 are Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV). More than 1,000 NGDVs have been received to date, of which more than 250 are BEV,” the rep added.
“Additionally, the Postal Service has ordered 9,250 Ford E-Transit electric vehicles, of which nearly 8,000 have been received. Deployment continues to expand to sites across the country in accordance with the rollout of our new delivery network.”
The Biden administration had been committed to USPS acquiring “100% electric” postal vehicles starting in 2026, but it remains to be seen whether Republicans will withdraw the funding for the green fleet project.
The transition of USPS vehicles to electric power from gas vehicles — a central pillar of Biden’s environmental agenda — has been stalled almost from the outset.
Expert estimates project that the broader set of environmental provisions included in the Inflation Reduction Act could cost taxpayers upward of $1 trillion during the decade following the bill’s passage.
The new, predominantly electric vehicles are meant to replace the antiquated fleet of Grumman Long Life Vehicles, which date to 1987 and are expensive to maintain, loud, fuel-inefficient, and have been known at times to burst into flame.
The miniscule number of vehicles that have been produced by Oshkosh are also a small fraction of the 60,000 total “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles,” powered by a mix of battery-electric and other energy sources, that USPS is set to purchase from the firm.
The miniscule number of vehicles that have been produced by Oshkosh are also a small fraction of the 60,000 total “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles,” powered by a mix of battery-electric and other energy sources, that USPS is set to purchase from the firm.
The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan taxpayer accountability agency, identified USPS in a February 2025 report as having “high risk” financial viability because the agency “still cannot fully fund its current level of services and financial obligations.”
In recent months, Trump has floated the possibility of merging USPS with the Department of Commerce, citing USPS losses of an astonishing $9.5 billion in fiscal year 2024.
“[USPS has] been just a tremendous loser for this country, tremendous amounts of money they’ve lost,” the president told reporters in February.
“We want to have a post office that works well and doesn’t lose massive amounts of money, and we’re thinking about doing that, and will be a form of a merger, but it’ll remain the Postal Service, and I think it’ll operate a lot better than it has been over the years.”
With the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States Post Office by the Second Continental Congress approaching on July 26, the newly appointed Steiner will inherit the tall task of modernizing USPS while its EV program continues to tread water.
