It’s been a protracted street to get right here, people. Fixed criticism, a strongly-worded letter from the Environmental Safety Company, a presidential plea, and a lawsuit from 16 states is all it took for the company to decide to give up buying new gas-powered supply autos. 

Let’s have a look contained in the USPS’s plan to modify to EVs and assessment what it took to get right here. And as an end-of-year deal with, I’ve additionally rounded up a few of my favourite Tech Overview local weather protection from the 12 months. Let’s get into it. 

The apparent alternative

As of 2020, transportation was the one largest driver of local weather change within the US, accounting for 27% of greenhouse fuel emissions. And the US federal authorities operates the largest fleet on the planet at 650,000 autos, with the USPS making up about one-third of that. 

Joe Biden has made the federal fleet one of many targets of his plans for EVs, setting a aim for all new federal autos bought after 2035 to be electrical, with light-duty autos hitting that concentrate on by 2027. 

However the USPS has been marching to a distinct drummer. Even because the Biden administration touted plans to impress and minimize emissions, the USPS appeared to dig in its heels on plans to buy extra fossil fuel-powered autos. Final 12 months, when the company first introduced a contract to interchange vans, solely 10% had been going to be EVs.