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Comment by kube-system | Hacker News Reader

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...

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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.

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