ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — The Postal Service’s new delivery vehicles won’t win any beauty contests. They’re tall and ungainly. Their windshields are huge. Their hoods resemble duckbills. Their bumpers are huge.

“You can tell (the designers) didn’t think about the look,” said postal worker Avis Stonum.

Aside from their odd looks, the first few next-generation delivery vehicles that rolled onto mail routes in Athens, Georgia, in August are earning rave reviews from mail carriers accustomed to stubborn older vehicles that lack modern safety features and are prone to breakdowns — or even fire.

Within a few years, the fleet will have grown to 60,000 vehicles, most of them electric models, serving as the postal service’s primary delivery vehicles from Maine to Hawaii.

Once fully operational, they will be one of the most visible signs of the 10 years, 40 billion dollars transformation The campaign is led by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who is also renovating aging facilities, overhauling the processing and transportation network, and introducing other changes.

The current postal vehicles – the Grumman Long Life Vehicle from 1987 – have lived up to their name and exceeded their planned service life. 25 years lifespanBut an exchange is long overdue.

The Grummans are loud, use little fuel (9 mpg), and are expensive to maintain. They are sweltering hot in the summer, and the only air circulation they get is an old electric fan. They have mirrors on them that, when perfectly aligned, allow the driver to see around the vehicle, but the mirrors are constantly out of alignment. Worryingly, nearly 100 of these vehicles caught fire last year, putting both delivery workers and postal services at risk.

The new trucks are built by Oshkosh Defense in South Carolina with comfort, safety and utility in mind.

Even tall mail carriers can stand upright without hitting their heads and walk from front to back to retrieve packages. For safety, the vehicles are equipped with airbags, 360-degree cameras, blind-spot monitoring, collision sensors and anti-lock brakes – all things that the Grummans lack.

The new trucks also feature something that has been common in most cars for more than 60 years: air conditioning. And that’s critical for drivers in the Deep South, the desert Southwest and other areas with sweltering summers.

“I promise you, it felt like the sky was blowing in my face,” Stonum said of her first experience working in an air-conditioned truck.

Richard Burton, another driver, said he appreciated the larger bed, which allows him to carry larger packages, and the fact that he doesn’t have to squat, which saves him back pain. The old trucks also often broke down in traffic, he added.

Brian Renfroe, president of the National Letter Carriers Association, said union members are excited about the new vehicles, just as they were when the Grummans represented a big step forward from the old Jeeps. He praised DeJoy for creating a sense of urgency to start production.

“We’re excited to have them on the road now,” Renfroe said.

The process got off to a rocky start.

Environmentalists reacted indignantly when DeJoy announced that 90 percent of the next-generation vehicles in the first order would run on gasoline. Lawsuits have been filed She demanded that the post office further electrify its fleet of over 200,000 vehicles in order to reduce exhaust emissions.

“Everyone is freaking out,” DeJoy said.

The problem, Dejoy said, is not that he doesn’t want electric cars. Rather, the cost of the vehicles, along with the cost of installing thousands of charging stations and upgrading the power system, is prohibitive – at a time when the agency is reporting large operating deficits every quarter.

He found a way to further increase the number of electric vehicles when he met with President Joe Biden’s top environmental adviser, John Podesta, which led to an agreement in which the The government provided $3 billion to the post office, with part of it intended for charging stations for electric cars.

In December 2022, DeJoy announced that the Postal Service would purchase 106,000 vehicles by 2028. This includes 60,000 next-generation vehicles, including 45,000 electric models, as well as 21,000 other electric vehicles. He promised to switch to electric-only vehicles for new purchases starting in 2026.

“The climate crisis is on our doorstep, and electrifying the U.S. government’s largest vehicle fleet will deliver the progress we’ve been waiting for,” said Katherine García of the Sierra Club, which sued the Postal Service before it decided to buy more electric vehicles.

Between electric vehicles, reduced exhaust emissions through optimized postal routes and other changes, the agency expects Reducing CO2 emissions by 40% by 2030DeJoy said. The route changes will also save money.

This summer, the Postal Service’s environmental fight came full circle when the White House honored it with the Presidential Federal Sustainability Award, marking the end of “an interesting journey,” DeJoy said.

The award demonstrates the agency’s ability to tackle complex problems – be they operational, financial, technical, political or regulatory, he said.

“It comes from pushing forward,” he said. “Keep moving.”

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Sharp reported from Portland, Maine.