USPS's new trucks deemed adorable

[Crowley]

I really love the design. It looks crisp and cartoony in a way that reminds me of the aesthetics of Team Fortress 2 and Psychonauts. The fact that it has right-hand drive to make the postworkers lives easier, and it has proper air conditioning, are also excellent features that factor in the well-being of postworkers in ways that the prior trucks simply haven’t.

[VeronicaConnor]

@GagHalfrunt

Right hand drive and left hand drive refer to the driving position inside the vehicle. The term for which side of the road you drive on is left/right hand traffic.

Thank you for this very important correction.

@GagHalfrunt

The Ford Transit is a European design, so it is engineered for both left hand drive and right hand drive.

Almost all cars are engineered for both now. But they are not built both ways in all countries, so it’s a special request for the USPS regardless. I was responding to the suggestion that they simply use off the shelf vehicles.

Please leave me alone now.

[Doctor_Faustus]

@StatusQuo

The fact that they are not all electric is a travesty. Mail truck are the PERFECT application for an EV.

These are the (all electric) postal vehicles of the German postal service. Unfortunately they stopped building them last year and are now going to buy ready made EVs instead. These ones were built by the postal service itself but it just wasn’t economical to do that.

Interestingly enough, also based on a Transit chassis.

[NukeML]

Looks like a hybrid of Postman Pat’s mail van

And the postman pat police car

[Otherbrother]

I take it back, apparently it was just announced that only 10% are planned to be electric, which is outrageous.

The U.S. Postal Service currently plans for only 10% of its new truck fleet to be electric, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said Wednesday, angering environmentalists who say the move flies in the face of a White Houseexecutive order to electrify the government’s vehicles.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-24/post-office-purchase-of-gasoline-truck-seems-to-defy-biden-order

[NickyG]

This seems to be getting some press, so hopefully there is something that can be done to look into the award and either throw it out, or adapt it to require more EVs. It’s insane at least the ones for urban areas wouldn’t be electric by mandate…

[the_borderer]

Get me one in red with panels instead of back windows, and I will be happy for a long time.

Original Postman Pat Theme

[the_borderer]

@NukeML

the postman pat police car

I refuse to accept that Greendale has police. It is a perfect market-anarcho-communist utopia so there would be no need for them.

[NukeML]

Then explain Mrs Goggin’s shop?

[the_borderer]

Market socialism

[NukeML]

Very well!

[spetrovits]

In case anyone’s interested in why the new vehicles look this way…

Here’s Why the New USPS Mail Trucks Look So Weird | The Drive

[Bonivus_elderheart]

@SangeetMobilius

Louie “the Weasel” DeJoy is the organized-crime nickname I give him

I like it! It’s got a nice zing to it!

[binaryhermit]

The fact that it has right-hand drive to make the postworkers lives easier

Aren’t the current ones right-hand drive?

And I saw something extremely similar to this delivering mail in my neighborhood a few weeks ago.

[jerwin]

[NickyG]

[TheMadTurk]

It works well for me. Yes, the weak point is packages, but even package delivery previews are at least 80% accurate. We were told to expect one to day that didn’t arrive, but that’s a rarity.