For more than 37 years, the Grumman LLV has been an icon of American mail delivery. These trucks have been absolute troopers, lasting far longer than they were even designed to go. Now, they’re passing the torch to the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle, which is finally getting into the hands of the postal carriers that keep America moving. There’s good news because the trucks are seemingly a hit out of the park with postal carriers absolutely in love with their ugly ducklings.
The Next Generation Delivery Vehicle, or NGDV, has been a long time coming. It’s been nearly a decade since the United States Postal Service launched a bidding process on a new truck and the program has seen delay after delay. However, as the Associated Press reports, the first production NGDVs finally hit the road last month, closing the book on one era of postal delivery while cracking open some fresh pages of a new era.
Soon, the iconic Grumman LLV will be allowed to retire and in its place will be the Oshkosh Defense NGDV, which looks like something you’d see out of a Despicable Me movie or perhaps a Richard Scarry book. But, even better is the fact that, according to the AP report, mail carriers love that their trucks have finally been brought out of the 1980s, which is great because for how cool the Grumman LLV was, it had some critical flaws that were never fixed.
A Long Time Coming
It feels like car sites have been talking about the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle forever, and that’s in part because the process of creating the new mail truck has taken an entire decade.
According to the National Association Of Letter Carriers, the journey of the NGDV officially started in 2014. Back then, the USPS was sitting on a fleet of more than 135,000 Grumman LLVs and the youngest ones were 20 years old. The Grumman LLV was initially expected to service the postal service for 24 years, but these trucks have excelled in living up to their ‘Long Life Vehicle’ name. Prior to the LLV, the post office used to have existing vehicles modified for mail delivery duty, resulting in rides like the famous Jeep Dispatcher. The LLV was a shift from the USPS making an existing vehicle work to creating what it thought was the perfect mail truck for the era.
As the AP reports, mail carriers were totally pumped to be getting out of their Jeeps and into the LLV, which looked all-new, but was cleverly a repurposed Chevrolet S-10 with a snazzy aluminum body and built to survive some serious abuse. Now, the mail carriers of today are excited all over again because the postal truck has finally become a modern vehicle.
In 2014, the USPS reached out to the National Association Of Letter Carriers union, asking for input on what the new postal truck should be like. The postal carriers had a lot of input, too, as the existing Grumman LLVs didn’t even have air-conditioning for those sweltering days. Those old LLVs didn’t have much in the way of safety, either.
By 2015, the USPS got a rough idea of what it wanted and solicited design proposals from manufacturers. The USPS selected 15 prequalified companies to submit design proposals. As CNBC reported, General Motors showed interest in getting the contract as well, but it wasn’t on the prequalified list. In 2015, CNBC reported that it was estimated that the winner of the contract would see a cash infusion of $5 billion and that the USPS hoped that the production NGDV would cost in the ballpark of $25,000 to $35,000 per unit. At the time, the USPS was noted to have about 200,000 postal vehicles in use and it wanted 180,000 NGDVs to replace most of them.
That year, the U.S. Postal Service Engineering Department published a 49-page draft detailing what the postal service was looking for in its new trucks. The paper opens with:
This specification covers new commercially manufactured right-hand drive vehicles having a minimum of 4.38 cubic meters (155 cubic feet) cargo stowage capacity, and a minimum rated payload capacity of not less than 680 kilograms (kg) (1,500 lbs.). Unless otherwise specified, the body shall be constructed of any combination of aluminum alloy, plastic, or composite materials having the necessary structural characteristics to provide the level of service and life expectancy detailed in this specification. The body shall have a design goal of attaining a 20-year vehicle life cycle. The power train shall have a design goal of a minimum life expectancy of 12 years while withstanding the unique rigors of its intended use.
Other goodies contained in those 49 pages include a body designed to be easily and cheaply repaired, windshield wiper pivots engineered to withstand extended use, the elimination of crevices for mail to accidentally fall into, improved electrical systems to prevent fires, and of course, greater interior comfort for letter carriers. That’s just a slice of what the USPS wanted the manufacturers to hopefully incorporate into their designs.
Performance requirements are also interesting, as the USPS wanted the new truck to be able to cruise at 65 mph on flat ground, take no longer than 35 seconds to hit 65 mph, be able to maintain 45 mph on a 2.5 percent grade, and to be capable of driving up a 20 percent grade in both forward and reverse.
In 2016, the USPS whittled the list of proposals down to six: AM General with a powertrain from Emerald Automotive; Karsan with bodywork by Morgan Olson; Oshkosh Defense with powertrain by Ford; Workhorse with a body by VT Hackney; Mahindra; and Utilimaster. All were all given contracts to build prototype NGDVs, which were put through abusive testing. When the bid for a new postal truck launched the USPS estimated the trucks would be on the road by 2018. Yet, the postal service didn’t even get the prototypes until 2017.
Competition was fierce, but as Emerald Automotive suggested in a 2022 piece by Vice, only the AM General/Emerald and the Oshkosh/Ford trucks survived the testing without constantly breaking down. Some competitors didn’t even stick around either. Utilimaster threw up the white flag early on in 2017 while Mahindra managed to stick around until 2020. By the end of that year, just three were left with Karsan, Oshkosh, and Workhorse. In 2021, the USPS selected Oshkosh and Ford to deliver the mail of the future.
The contract won by Oshkosh called for the USPS to purchase between 50,000 and 165,000 vehicles, and use those vehicles to phase out the old LLVs over about a decade of time. The USPS also tossed Oshkosh $482 million to help bring the truck to final production spec.
Drama erupted after Oshkosh won the bid. Workhorse sued and then dropped the case. Later, it was discovered that the Oshkosh NGDV got around 8 mpg, no better than the LLV it was replacing, though the NGDV got that fuel economy with air-conditioning – a feature LLVs don’t have. Another bombshell landed in 2021 when Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said that only 10 percent of the NGDVs would be electric models because it would be too cost-prohibitive to buy more. This didn’t go over well with 16 states, six non-profit groups, a number of cities, the EPA, the Biden Administration, and more.
Each pressured the USPS with public messaging andd through lawsuits to order more EVs. The 60,000 unit initial order eventually increased from 10 percent EVs to 20 percent, to 50 percent, and then finally, as Car and Driver reports, to 75 percent. By 2026, the USPS says all of its new NGDV orders will be electric.
The trucks were supposed to launch in 2023 but were delayed until this summer. Finally, they’re hitting the road.
Mail Carriers Are In Love
As the AP reports, the NGDVs are out there and delivering the mail at last. The USPS also hasn’t backed down from its promise to make sure that most of the NGDVs are all-electric.
All of this is good news because, as the AP notes, the Grumman LLVs aren’t nearly as beloved by postal carriers as they are by myself and many Autopians. According to LLV operators, the machines are noisy, inefficient, and dangerously hot on sizzling days. As the AP notes, the LLVs are hot in other ways, too, such as the fact that nearly 100 of them caught fire last year alone. So, just about everyone wants them gone already. I asked my own letter carrier what he thinks about his LLV and he said, quote: “It’s slow and ridiculously hot.”
Sadly for the letter carriers around America, the death of the LLV will be slow. The USPS expects to have around 60,000 NGDVs on the road within the next few years and the rest of the LLV fleet will likely be retired within a decade.
The AP notes that right out of the gate, letter carriers just love the fact that you can see out of the NGDV and it isn’t a sweatbox. From the AP:
Even tall postal carriers can stand up without bonking their heads and walk from front to back to retrieve packages. For safety, the vehicles have airbags, 360-degree cameras, blind-spot monitoring, collision sensors and anti-lock brakes — all of which are missing on the Grummans.
The new trucks also feature something common in most cars for more than six decades: air conditioning. And that’s key for drivers in the Deep South, the desert Southwest and other areas with scorching summers.
“I promise you, it felt like heaven blowing in my face,” Stonum said of her first experience working in an air-conditioned truck.
Others just love the fact that the new trucks don’t kill your back or break down from the AP:
Richard Burton, another driver, said he appreciates the larger payload area, which can accommodate bigger packages, and the fact that he doesn’t have to crouch, helping him avoid back pain. The old trucks also had a habit of breaking down in traffic, he added.
Brian Renfroe, president of the National Letter Carriers Association, said union members are enthusiastic about the new vehicles, just as they were when the Grummans marked a leap forward from the previous old-school Jeeps. He credited DeJoy with bringing a sense of urgency to get them into production.
“We’re excited now to be at the point where they’re starting to hit the streets,” Renfroe said.
There’s more to love, too. The ICE trucks have a Ford EcoBoost 2.0-liter four making 250 HP and 206 lb-ft of torque, which means they can run circles around the archaic LLVs. An eight-speed transmission backs that engine and it’s expected that there will be both 2WD and 4WD variants of the NGDV. Most of them will have a Bosch electric motor with 200 HP of peak output and 94 HP of continuous output. These will be fed from 94 kWh batteries and they will be operated on routes no further than 70 miles.
Sadly, it’s not all good news. The 2022 NGDV order called for the procurement of 50,000 units at a price of $2.98 billion. Neither Oshkosh nor the USPS has given exact pricing on the NGDVs, but if that order is anything to go off of, the NGDVs came in at far more expensive than originally projected.
Still, if letter carriers are happy, and it sounds like they are, then it’s probably money well spent. These trucks are totally function over form, in an endearing way, and they’re delivering the mail far better than their predecessors. Maybe, one day the NGDV will be as much as a mail icon as the LLV.
(Images: USPS, unless otherwise noted.)
Ugly? Not at all!
Well, the headlights are a little bit squinty I know sort of a squinty postman?
Oh my God it’s Newman.!
Oh, that’s a little disturbing but no, it’s not ugly
Actually, I run into Wayne Knight occasionally in Brooklyn at the Academy of music and he seems like a nice guy.
I don’t think it’s ugly. Odd, for sure, but in a fun way, and I appreciate how it’s odd for a reason, and not just for the sake of being odd.
Seeing these bring a smile to my face. These things a magnificently, weirdly cool.
I’m gonna call this new postal vehicle the “Camel.”
A horse (truck) that was designed by a committee.
I think it is a fitting name.
Presenting the duck-billed Postalpus.
troupers not troopers – just sayin’ because journalism
I love it. The quirky (and entirely functional) design is awesome. And yeah, all the updated features and added comfort for USPS folks is huge. Hopefully as the production line gets going delivery can speed up a bit.
How can an EV and/or truck with a 4-cylinder eco burst motor only get 8 mpg?
Any word about the flammability of the EVs? At least the LLCs got to 20 years old before spontaneously combustion. Hope they social distance these rigs whe parked.
Because they accelerate 10 feet, then stop, then idle, then accelerate, and so on and so forth. I’m willing to bet any combustion vehicle would likely see similar numbers in those kind of conditions. EV’s make a ton of sense for the denser neighborhoods, gassers more so for the rural routes.
^^ YUP ^^
While I love the design and everything… why couldn’t they just use a normal van with a customised load bay like the rest of the world’s postal services? It probably would have reduced the time taken to get them in the hands of the posties down to about two years instead of ten, and likely would have cost a lot less in the long run too given there’d be a lot more parts commonality with regular commercial vans.
They do, the USPS has been using Mercedes-Benz Metris vans (Funnily enough there’s an article on here about why they don’t have Mercedes-Benz badges on them) and RAM ProMasters.
In Canada we use a lot of Ford Transit Connect vans for local mail routes. They already make a RHD version for the UK. Off the shelf choice.
Oddly enough, I’ll invoke the A-10 Warthog here. Most of the plane had single curvature surfaces, so field repairs could be fabricated from flat sheet metal. Same design principle here (and with the LLV, for that matter) – rather than having to stock various large parts or wait for them to get shipped in, they can fabricate replacement parts locally as needed. Over 20 to 30 (or more) years, there will be significant cost savings and quicker repair turn around.
. . . except for that huge, curved windshield. Between letting a LOT of heat in and serving no real purpose (for visibility) with its top 12″-15″, it’s going to negate any of the other savings.
The giant windshield doesn’t increase visibility? It’s … clear. Also, do you really think the cost to replace a windshield (even with ADAS tech) touches the cost of major ICE powertrain repairs??
I disagree on the visibility issue. That extra height could be very beneficial in certain urban settings, where seeing the traffic lights and signals on the side street you’re about to turn onto (as opposed to waiting on the the signals directly in front of you) could be useful. Both from a safety and time savings perspective.
Also, modern glass tech can go a long way towards reflecting the heat. While I’m sure it doesn’t have the R value of a triple pane house window, I’m sure it’s a lot better than windshields used to be.
I expect they more than made up for their investment in the purpose built LLV, so they’re probably hoping to do the same here.
Because it’s the government, wasting money is what they do. There’s a reason this one and the last one were made by defense contractors that have no other road vehicle experience.
The letter carriers in my neck of the weeds have finally had most of the LLVs retired and are now in the USPS’ stop-gap vehicle, the MB Metris, in right-hand drive.
Our parking lot used to look cool with the llvs all parked in a row. Now it’s a mix of ffvs, metrises (metri?), promasters, and a couple llvs that spew transmission fluid puddles and refuse to die.
Given the look of that hood, a nickname involving duck or duckling seems quite appropriate.
They appear to be quite functional and a welcome update for the people that drive them.
That windshield is massive but they wisely chose to have more than one wiper..
Hmmm… I christian it… The Quack Fighter.
Sounds like a medical malpractice attorney.
The designers must be Autopian fans… look at those very adequate bumpers!
“Hey! My windshield is up HERE!”
1500 pound payload. Sounds like it can hold a lot of pre-sorted junk mail and political advertising.
Here’s the thing that bugs me about the people complaining about the gas mileage of these things. If we allowed people to cut down on the junk mail that comes to our houses, we could have less trucks on the road, less trees getting cut down, and less garbage mail going into our landfills. Let’s put the focus in the right place. Most days I’d like to be like Kramer and cancel my mail service. Especially times like now, right before an election.
Cancel your mail? Wait until the Post Master General hears about this!
Wilfred “Quaker Oats” Brimley has plenty to say about that!
It’s absurd. We “care about the environment” while we print and ship millions of pieces of trash to be sorted and delivered to everyone’s residence so they can be dropped in the trash barrel. At least 99% of the mail I receive is garbage, including from businesses I chose the “go paperless option” for that still insist on sending me mailers anyway and massive seemingly weekly catalogs from businesses I bought one item from years ago and are the kinds of products that aren’t bought on a regular bases, like fancy pendant lights from a lighting company.
You must live in a very odd place. All of my recycling is actually recycled (well, most of it), especially the paper.
You could encourage your local elected officials to consider a waste contract that includes *effective* recycling.
Crumple it up and stuff it in a collection box. That’s what my customers do to express their annoyance with “junk” mail.
“Do not bend. Just crease, crumple, cram. You’ll do fine”
-Newman
Unfortunately the USPS makes a significant portion of it’s income from junk mail; in 2021 they took in $15 billion from it. In my experience they show no interest in improving their package delivery experience so junk mail is all they’ve got to keep them running…
You can. Just remove your mail box.
They will just out it in my door instead. I have an odd house where my mailbox is at the back of my house because I’m on a main road and the previous owner was very elderly. So they go in my driveway to the back of my house, deliver the mail, and drive out. When I get a new mail delivery person and they don’t know that, they open my front storm door and put it in between that and the front door.
lol, that sounds about right. This organization has no consistencyI got a few that gave up on us and pulled the mailbox down. They figured it was worth it to give up a couple ounces of first class over the pounds of ads and just do the bill thing online or get a po box that gets a lot less junk.
I like the idea, but the junkmail is basically what’s keeping the USPS afloat these days. Actual letter volume is down drastically. So, getting rid of it might be a hard sell financially, unless we want to start subsidizing USPS.
Recall for faulty engine incoming in 3…2…1 to 2 weeks based on tracking information.
Good for the drivers, though! They are underpaid and overworked. If you don’t believe it, go on youtube and dive deeeeeep into the rabbit hole that is USPS videos. There are hundreds upon hundreds of vids showing what it’s like to work there. It’s all pretty bananas, actually.
With specifications of a tall interior and a low hood “this is what peak performance looks like”. A hybrid drive train would have improved gas mileage but added cost and complexity. The LLV was such a misery box that the NGDV is like going fro a Trabant to a BMW
I grew up with the Jeep Dispatchers, then saw the transition to the futuristic (really, that’s what they looked like back then) LLV, and now get to see this. Cool.
My guess is that in the future, USPS will provide last-ditch, guaranteed universal email as its main service…so I really hope the delivery notification that pops up on our screens features an icon of this guy.
article 1, section 8 of congress says that they must establish post offices and post roads.
it doesn’t say it has to be profitable, or at all even preferred, it just has to exist. so I’m sure congress will do things that help them stay relevant (not likely), but the post office will never go away.
I think “Cartoonishly Ugly” is a bit of a stretch and actually really insulting to the designers of the vehicle as well as the committee that agreed that this was the best option.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder afterall, just because some (or many) might not like it, it’s not exactly best form to **** on someone else’s daily driver esp if they’re esp happy with it.
While ugly may be in the sight of the beholder, Cartoonish is 100% accurate. See the “Flying Car 2” from Cloudy with a chance meatballs. This thing appears to be a direct descendant
They remind me of R.A.L.F. from Flight of the Navigator.
I’m pretty sure they aren’t intentionally ugly.
They happen to be ugly because being “not ugly” was not a requirement, and the shape that met the requirements turned out like this.
Intentionally ugly implies that if they ended up with an attractive design (that didn’t violate any requirements, including budgets) the project lead would have said, “nope, go make it uglier”
i’m pretty sure that during the rfp process design input could’ve been provided to vendors so that they could update its form, assuming it wasn’t good enough. this design was clearly chosen by committee since it’s currently being deployed fleet wide.
i hope the windshields are cheaper poly carbonate that can be easily replaced though.
Did you have a certain EV company CEO in mind with that last bit?
That’s fair! Perhaps a better descriptor would have been “function over form.”
hmmmmmm. I’m a little skeptical they are going to be able to properly maintain these things. Lets hope these will provide long & reliable service.
Why not? Nothing here looks especially complicated or proprietary beyond that gigantic windshield.
I had a friend who worked on the LLV’s for the postal service. They managed to blow up trannys and motors all the time. Pretty dang tough to blow up an iron duke… They would pay to replace, but not really pay to maintain (transmission fluid changes, filter changes, etc)
Haven‘t USPS heard about email? Would be cheaper and faster
it’s very hard to email packages
Agreed, until replicators or 3D printers are in every household and they e-mail you the design specs and it replicates/prints on-site.
Send as attachment. ????
I can’t wait to see one of these tubbed out and hotrodded.
Roomy, airy (as in A/C), and rides better. What’s not to love? I also think they’re kind of handsome in a function over form kind of way.
definitely agree.
however you might think at first glance, you have a good design when form matches function as seems to be the case here. I’m sure the vehicles will come to be appreciated for that.
A family friend is a postal worker and is looking forward to these. He actually took a walking route this summer to avoid cooking in an LLV, but the idea of A/C and a vehicle he can actually stand up in has him excited for the future. Like you say, in his eyes the aesthetics don’t matter – the thing is beautiful for its functionality.