DeJoy was a Trump appointee. As witnessed by other such appointees (education, EPA), I was concerned DeJoy would gut the postal service. Sounds like that isn’t the case.
There was a TON of controversy early on. There were _significant_ cuts, and, IIRC, very poor performance during the first Christmas season. I remember a large amount of negativity about both his proposed changes and the actual changes he implemented. Of course, the extent to which you think it's trying to kill the USPS vs simply make it more efficient to save it will depend a lot on your politics.
He tried gas powered, then due to backlash got the government to give $3B for electric.
“Environmentalists were outraged when DeJoy announced that 90% of the next-gen vehicles in the first order would be gas-powered. Lawsuits were filed demanding that the Postal Service further electrify its fleet of more than 200,000 vehicles to reduce tailpipe emissions.”
“He found a way to further boost the number of electric vehicles when he met with President Joe Biden’s top environmental adviser, John Podesta. That led to a deal in which the government provided $3 billion to the Postal Service, with part of it earmarked for electric charging stations.”
My understanding is that the bought a majority-gas fleet with the budget he had, and as congress have him additional money for EV purchases, he adjusted increasingly towards EVs.
Also, 2021 was a long time ago. It was easy in 2021 to say "We're transitioning to EVs by 2030!" but it was not easy to actually buy $6B in working EV vans... they were all hypothetical. That changed, and so the USPS purchases did accordingly.
> it was not easy to actually buy $6B in working EV vans... they were all hypothetical
I'm not really understanding the excuse-making. They already own EV alternatives in the form of the existing fleet. If they have insufficient funds, replace fewer trucks. Don't add more ICE to the roads.
The LLVs currently in use are tiny and have a 150-mile range. That's Nissan Leaf numbers. We're not asking for Rivians here. Figure it out.
The LLVs have also been in service for 35 years. Whatever replaces them is going to be there for a long time. The fact that so many of these are ICE is a disgrace.
ICE should be reserved strictly for routes that demand it.
Rick Perry was also appointed to run the Department of Energy presumably because he was famous for previously saying it should be abolished... yet by all accounts seems to have taken the job seriously and did it well.
