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Comment by dengsauve | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand why USPS would contract out designing a new vehicle instead of buying American SUVs built for Europe - all the amenities of a modern SUV, plenty of parts and mechanics to repair them, and they'll have been built by a real car company, not some "Tactical Vehicle Manufacturer". Best of all, they'll have that right-hand-drive that Postal workers love so much.

We can't even do something as simple as upgrading the post office vehicles without bringing in defense contractors. Give me a break. Put that money towards a company of peace, or at least the company that will cost USPS the least.

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Are you going to complain that fishing boats have Raytheon radars?

Oshkosh makes tons of industry specific truck bodies. That's one of their business lines. Same for Grumman before them.

Despite what the internet commenters seeking validation for their decision to purchase a 3yo Tacoma at 2k over MSRP will have you believe, the edge between vehicle manufacturers is quite small to the point where USPS contracting somebody, anybody to build them a bunch of purpose built vehicles will likely be cheaper in the long run than slapping a bunch of shelves in a RHD Transit Connect.

And this is coming from someone who thinks most commercial fleets are over-equipped for regulatory compliance reasons and that the broader economy would be better off if that didn't happen.

Building off an existing platform makes some sense, but modern SUVs are a set of design trade offs that probably aren't great for much other than their target market: suburban homes doing school runs, work commutes and occasional grocery runs on good roads, while maintaining occasional use functionality to pick up heavier/bulkier objects.

They don't make much sense as a commercial vehicle designed to get in and out of all day and load and unload. So your car manufacture would make a bunch of modifications, and at that point you are right back where you started.

Now if you were suggesting buy a bunch of whatever some other country had developed for the same purpose, you might be onto something.

> American SUVs built for Europe

> they'll have that right-hand-drive that Postal workers love so much.

Maybe you know, but the vast majority of Europe is right-hand-traffic, left-hand-drive like the US. AFAIK only the UK and Ireland are left-hand-traffic in Europe.

They're planning to buy like 100,000 of these. May as well do the work to get what you actually want when you're buying that many.

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