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Comment by pasttense01 | Hacker News Reader

Defense companies are known for high prices, so I think it would have been cheaper to go with the traditional auto manufacturers.

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Traditional companies struggle to navigate the government acquisitions process, or acquisitions can be so different than traditional manufacturing and customer sales that it would require a completely separate company to manage the risks anyways.

Instead you typically wind up with a contractor company that can work the system and they act as a middle tier that interfaces with the production company. In the case of vehicles you could imagine a low end contractor would negotiate production fleet vehicles. A mid range contractor might build custom versions using a stock base with a different cabin/storage. The large contractor can handle the full lifecycle including the protracted support and maintenance requirements.

IIRC, the existing USPS vehicles are made with a lot of off-the-shelf parts from existing automakers and their suppliers. In a way, this really isn't that much different than traditional automakers -- a lot of them share parts, or even entire chassis designs. I would expect that these will probably also share a lot of parts from other existing vehicles.

The difference is that a government contractor has expertise in packaging everything to meet a single customer's needs. Traditional automakers don't really do this -- they build to their own spec.

Chevy has no issues selling their cars directly to government agencies and Ford to Police. So I think that theory is debunked.

More likely reason is politics.

GM's own website about government sales references things I specifically said, so I'm unsure what you're referring to.

"Our team can work with you to develop your bid or connect you with the appropriate dealer to fulfill your needs."

https://www.gmfleet.com/government-fleets

Supposedly Oshkosh partnered with Ford for their bid. Though, now they're being evasive: https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2021/02/23/oshko...

If this was happening in South Africa I would think corruption 100%. I mean, why can't you just take any van and stick some standard issue shelves in the back?

You can do that -- but remember that the USPS operates at a huge scale and with a very specific set of use cases. Mass market vehicles are designed for average use cases.

If they can custom design a vehicle that saves a driver 1 second per delivery, or decrease their accident rate by 1%, that could be enough savings to pay for the vehicle and then some.

Many organizations that operate at a huge scale find it beneficial to customize their essential tool set.

That being said -- The USPS definitely does have some vehicles from traditional automakers in their fleet. My mailman drives a RAM ProMaster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_Ducato It's left-hand-drive though, so I would imagine that carriers wouldn't want to drive one on a route with mailboxes at the roadside. https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images...

I realise that the uk is different in scale to the US, but we function just fine here with mass market vehicles. All* our last mile deliveries are made by normal vehicles, even in London!

(Apparently according to https://www.whatvan.co.uk/analysis-and-comment/2016/fleet-fo... there are some modified vans by peugeot to handle "rough" terrain, but that's a far cry from a custom designed custom built vehicle).

Bear in mind that these "custom" vehicles that the USPS has used in the past use a lot of off-the-shelf parts. For example, the current "custom" Grumman LLV is built on a GM chassis, and uses a GM powertrain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_LLV

It's essentially a new shell thrown on top of an 80's GM SUV.

Do you have left-hand drive mail vehicles in the UK? I don't recall ever seeing images of a Royal Mail delivering to a post-mounted mail box from a truck now that I think about it....

Not that I know of, nope. My experience is that the royal mail vans are parked, and they do the rounds on-foot/bike

This is really not a new thing, ups and fedex have been using custom package cars for decades. It seems totally crazy to go with a military contractor for something that we have a mature industry for a la FCCC or Paccar equivalent

Oshkosh has been making trucks since 1917... and they make commercial vehicles too. For example, Jerr-Dan is one of their brands.

Fedex buys trucks from companies like "Spartan Motors", that build in custom/specialized vehicles.

From wikipedia, Oshkosh seems be a company doing custom/specialized vehicles for all kinds of purposes, including military designs. Why does that seem like a "crazy" choice suddenly?

Oshkosh is/has a large civilian truck frame and chassis manufacturer.

160 000 vehicles is not huge scale for any automaker.

Anyway, I think the biggest issue is that USPS is not requiring for next gen platform to be fully electric.

Driver's seat would be on the wrong side, so in for the US we'd need to import cars from places like SA that are right hand drive.

Well, yes. For decades rural routes have been served using Right Hand Drive Jeeps built for export markets (Australia, NZ, SA, etc.)

It seems like a good idea on the surface, but the volume is way too low, a traditional automaker wouldn't touch this. Fleet vehicles are also notoriously low margin, which is fine if you're rounding up sales of an existing model (like police variants of existing models). But it wouldn't be a smart play for a large automaker to build a custom low volume fleet vehicle like the USPS is commissioning here.

It maybe relatively low volume but it's a multi-billion contract.

Most of the traditional car manufacturers are also defense contractors (although some like Ford have spun of their businesses).

Current USPS delivery trucks platform is based on Chevy truck. Basically the undercarriage is GMs product.

It seems government contracting with a middle-man who contracts with others is how government likes it. Probably politicians are getting more influence this way, at our cost.

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