Mail-Order Ride

For the U.S. Postal Service's new truck, the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle, the design has a purpose. It isn't beauty.

- _by John Voelcker _photography by John Roe

WITH ITS MAIL-DELIVERY JEEPS and the slab-sided Grumman Long Life Vehicles (LLVs) that replaced them, the United States Postal Service (USPS) has had two of the most recognizable vehicles on the road.

Now a new model is rolling up to America's mailboxes.

The Next Generation Delivery Vehicle (NGDV) developed by Oshkosh Defense for the USPS is intended to replace the aging and expensive-to-maintain 1986-94 Grumman LLVs and 1999-2001 Ford Utilimaster flex-fuel vehicles (FFVs) that account for roughly two-thirds of its delivery vehicles.

The new truck has been slowly entering the fleets of federal mail facilities. Emphasis on slowly. Because of equipment and supplier issues, Oshkosh has yet to reach full-rate production of the NGDV. In fact, it only delivered the first of an initial 50,000-unit order of NGDVs in mid-2024, nearly a year behind schedule.

With the option to order up to 165,000 NGDVs over 10 years, the USPS expects the new vans to reduce fleet maintenance costs significantly. A large reason for this is the van's available battery-electric powertrain, which will power around 70 percent of the NGDVs included in the $2.98 billion initial order by the USPS. The remaining 30 percent will use a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder from Ford, with power going to either the front wheels or all four. Starting in 2026, the USPS intends to order only electric NGDVs just like the prototype model we briefly drove around Oshkosh’s Wisconsin headquarters.