New Ugly A$$ Postal Trucks

[got3fords]

First thing that popped into my mind when I saw that bumper....

OMG! When I was in boot camp, we had a black recruit with very large lips. Our company commander made him get up and stand sideways in front of the projector so that his profile displayed enormously on the wall. I laughed, but looking back, I kinda feel sorry for the guy.

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[got3fords]

So let's talk about why it looks the way it does: visibility and interior height. I know visibility is a dirty word in modern truck fashion (who cares if you run over a kid because you can't see less than 15 feet in front of the hood?) but I guess USPS is less psychotic than your average US car manufacturer. Visibility is even more of a factor for USPS than for regular folk as they're starting and stopping constantly in residential areas. And if you do still manage to hit someone, with a hood that low they're going to be more pissed than dead. The second major factor is interior height + overall volume. You maximize volume by making a big box. So here we have a vehicle that's a big tall box that you can stand up in. What's not a factor? Highway aerodynamics, as they're going to spend almost all of their life at low speeds. Your suggested alternatives have reasonable visibility (for 2020's vehicle design) but not as good as the NGDV. Why? because the driver is much further from the bottom of the windshield and the windshield doesn't extend as low and is much more steeply sloped. Why did they do that and compromise visibility (a major factor for USPS)? For aerodynamics (a factor that is irrelevant to USPS). So what other configurations were possible? Cabover would give you visibility, but reaching the mailbox from the seat would be a hilarious challenge, and maintenance costs (another important factor in TCO) would be higher. I don't really see many other options--what we have here seems to be a really well designed vehicle that is exquisitely matched to its role. Anything off the shelf jut isn't going to work as well. People complain that it doesn't look like most vehicles, but why on earth would you start by designing the outside of the vehicle and then cram your requirements into it instead of starting from the requirements and use those to constrain the exterior? As to the price: does it cost a bit more up front? Sure. But if it increases the efficiency of the operators, improves safety, and manages to hit reliability targets, the cost differences disappear over the design lifetime. Just having to deal with a swinging door instead of a sliding door, and having to stretch to get to the mailbox from the seat could cost more in lost productivity than you save up-front. (To put the $10-20k difference into perspective, USPS was spending something like $5k per year keeping the LLVs on the road.) Would long term maintenance costs be lower on a frankenford with specialized USPS-only modifications? Based on my recent experiences with ford QC I find that really hard to believe. Also, if the vehicles are successful and USPS increases the order size it's likely that the (inflation-adjusted) unit price will go down as the design+startup costs are already paid.

Overall, I mostly don't understand why anyone gives two shits about what a postal vehicle looks like as long as it gets the job done, but I'll actually go a step further and say that I vastly prefer how this thing looks over the high grill "aggressive" design obsession that's all we can find on the US retail truck market. I don't want my truck to look like it's trying to compensate for Freudian deficiencies; I do want my truck to look like it has good visibility, easy maintenance, decent aerodynamics (because I do drive at highway speeds), and pedestrian safety. Instead, they only want to sell me a giant block of chrome that some people apparantly think looks better and I think looks ridiculous and poorly designed.

I read some of that.

 

[Jason B]

So let's talk about why it looks the way it does: visibility and interior height. I know visibility is a dirty word in modern truck fashion (who cares if you run over a kid because you can't see less than 15 feet in front of the hood?) but I guess USPS is less psychotic than your average US car manufacturer. Visibility is even more of a factor for USPS than for regular folk as they're starting and stopping constantly in residential areas. And if you do still manage to hit someone, with a hood that low they're going to be more pissed than dead. The second major factor is interior height + overall volume. You maximize volume by making a big box. So here we have a vehicle that's a big tall box that you can stand up in. What's not a factor? Highway aerodynamics, as they're going to spend almost all of their life at low speeds. Your suggested alternatives have reasonable visibility (for 2020's vehicle design) but not as good as the NGDV. Why? because the driver is much further from the bottom of the windshield and the windshield doesn't extend as low and is much more steeply sloped. Why did they do that and compromise visibility (a major factor for USPS)? For aerodynamics (a factor that is irrelevant to USPS). So what other configurations were possible? Cabover would give you visibility, but reaching the mailbox from the seat would be a hilarious challenge, and maintenance costs (another important factor in TCO) would be higher. I don't really see many other options--what we have here seems to be a really well designed vehicle that is exquisitely matched to its role. Anything off the shelf jut isn't going to work as well. People complain that it doesn't look like most vehicles, but why on earth would you start by designing the outside of the vehicle and then cram your requirements into it instead of starting from the requirements and use those to constrain the exterior? As to the price: does it cost a bit more up front? Sure. But if it increases the efficiency of the operators, improves safety, and manages to hit reliability targets, the cost differences disappear over the design lifetime. Just having to deal with a swinging door instead of a sliding door, and having to stretch to get to the mailbox from the seat could cost more in lost productivity than you save up-front. (To put the $10-20k difference into perspective, USPS was spending something like $5k per year keeping the LLVs on the road.) Would long term maintenance costs be lower on a frankenford with specialized USPS-only modifications? Based on my recent experiences with ford QC I find that really hard to believe. Also, if the vehicles are successful and USPS increases the order size it's likely that the (inflation-adjusted) unit price will go down as the design+startup costs are already paid.

Overall, I mostly don't understand why anyone gives two shits about what a postal vehicle looks like as long as it gets the job done, but I'll actually go a step further and say that I vastly prefer how this thing looks over the high grill "aggressive" design obsession that's all we can find on the US retail truck market. I don't want my truck to look like it's trying to compensate for Freudian deficiencies; I do want my truck to look like it has good visibility, easy maintenance, decent aerodynamics (because I do drive at highway speeds), and pedestrian safety. Instead, they only want to sell me a giant block of chrome that some people apparantly think looks better and I think looks ridiculous and poorly designed.

I hope they consulted actual USPS delivery people, and not some desk engineer and design team that thinks this is the best option.

 

[got3fords]

I think we should just let Amazon deliver the mail. They are at our house everyday and never deliver the wrong packages plus thet deliver 7 days a week. I bet stamps and packages would be half the price. The post office looses taxpayer money every year so just shut it down.

If it weren't for this, it would be fairly simple to do.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution, known as the Postal Clause or the Postal Power, empowers Congress "To establish Post Offices and post Roads."

 

[got3fords]

Get a grip people, it's a MAIL DELIVERY vehicle, as long as it does the job and the drivers like it, which they do, why should you care. It's not like they are going clubbing it the thing!

OMG, I wonder if you can get a civilian model. Maybe set it up for camping or something.

 

[Chris M]

EVERY package I receive at home from Amazon is delivered by USPS.
Packages I receive at work are delivered by UPS.

As for the postal truck, the only opinion that will matter is that of the drivers using those.
In my area, USPS postal workers use personal vehicles, most are Jeep Cherokee or Wrangler with right had drive.

Isn't it interesting how our experiences seem to differ by geographic location?
In my daily work life for approximately the last 15 years I come into close proximity (within a foot or two) to Amazon drivers as I check them into the community I'm guarding, and so I have to speak to them all. Used to be the ones I spoke to were in Amazon branded trucks or fleet independent contractor vehicles. Most of those were reasonably intelligent and could read up to at least an elementary school level...and spoke passable English. I'm not exaggerating in my description, as I've all too often had to have them show me the package label because they did not know how to read the delivery address to me (did not know how to read aloud a street address with house number and name and often could not pronounce street names). This happens to me every day still, except now I'm having to interact with more and more gig drivers with no English capability at all. The more time goes by, the less Amazon seems to care who handles our packages. You'd be surprised (possibly) how many I speak to every day whose car reeks of pot when they roll the windows down to check in at the guardhouse. It's maddening to me, actually. I do NOT want these people handling my packages now, much less have them tasked with handling my mail. Prices are indeed going up for postal service, but I'm OK with paying it to have what seems to me to be a mostly more responsible group of people handling it.

By the way, the Door Dash and GrubHub drivers also have a high count of people delivering to my site that reek of pot and cant read their way out of a wet paper bag, so I'm not throwing off on just the Amazon drivers. It's more prevalent than many know, and that scares me a bit as they're out there driving among us daily.

My apologies now for that little rant. I'll be crawling back under my rock now.

 

[JesseS]

OMG, I wonder if you can get a civilian model. Maybe set it up for camping or something.

Go for it

 

[NotBudule2]

This thread is a BAN TRAP ! I'm out...

 

[got3fords]

Go for it

I was asking for a friend....

 

[got3fords]

Our local Amazon driver was very good, always put the package on the front porch (which we never use) out of the way under cover, and sent us a pic. Too bad she got arrested for stealing a dog out of someone's yard.

 

[AzScorpion]

Our local Amazon driver was very good, always put the package on the front porch (which we never use) out of the way under cover, and sent us a pic.

Too bad she got arrested for stealing a dog out of someone's yard.

I know it's not supposed to be funny but damn it is when you think about it. ?

 

[VAMike]

I read some of that.

Always important to avoid nuance and get worked up over the headlines, I guess. You can't have an informed decision or meaningful conversation about a $6bn acquisition on nothing but sound bites.

 

[got3fords]

I know it's not supposed to be funny but damn it is when you think about it. ?

The dog was returned unharmed to the rightful owner, so there's a good ending.

 

[yamahaSHO]

I haven't made one comment saying we shouldn't get the chosen vehicle due to its looks. The vehicles I picked appeared to have a better cargo capacity for mail and packages with a cheaper advertised MSRP than the new design they picked. Yes, the new design does look like a platypus and is not very appealing, but the transit van from Ford reminds me of a pug and is losing in the beauty compartment comparatively.

I don't actually care what the subject is. Just making light of the fact that your words indicate a lot of care.

 

[Jason B]

Isn't it interesting how our experiences seem to differ by geographic location?
In my daily work life for approximately the last 15 years I come into close proximity (within a foot or two) to Amazon drivers as I check them into the community I'm guarding, and so I have to speak to them all. Used to be the ones I spoke to were in Amazon branded trucks or fleet independent contractor vehicles. Most of those were reasonably intelligent and could read up to at least an elementary school level...and spoke passable English. I'm not exaggerating in my description, as I've all too often had to have them show me the package label because they did not know how to read the delivery address to me (did not know how to read aloud a street address with house number and name and often could not pronounce street names). This happens to me every day still, except now I'm having to interact with more and more gig drivers with no English capability at all. The more time goes by, the less Amazon seems to care who handles our packages. You'd be surprised (possibly) how many I speak to every day whose car reeks of pot when they roll the windows down to check in at the guardhouse. It's maddening to me, actually. I do NOT want these people handling my packages now, much less have them tasked with handling my mail. Prices are indeed going up for postal service, but I'm OK with paying it to have what seems to me to be a mostly more responsible group of people handling it.

By the way, the Door Dash and GrubHub drivers also have a high count of people delivering to my site that reek of pot and cant read their way out of a wet paper bag, so I'm not throwing off on just the Amazon drivers. It's more prevalent than many know, and that scares me a bit as they're out there driving among us daily.

My apologies now for that little rant. I'll be crawling back under my rock now.

Yep, It all depends where you are. I leave in very rural are, so it's USPS for most things, sometimes UPS or FedEx for large items, but I usually have those shipped to my work because they will arrive 2 or 3 days earlier.

My daughter lives north of Dallas. On a few occasions, things I ordered for her showed that same day or the next. Directly shipped by Amazon from warehouse to doorstep.

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