> For 19 years, Richard Burton, a letter carrier in Athens, Ga., drove the classic boxy mail truck...
After reading this, I realized I still perceive the the current generation as the new generation. Geez.
Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
121–130 of 156 posts
Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
#122The seat height in the banner image looks too tall for the mailboxes. I wonder how the seat height in the NGDV compares to the Grumman LLV.
The seat height in the banner image looks too tall for the mailboxes. The very first image in the article shows a driver putting mail in a mailbox. What more proof do you need? https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/11/20/multimedia/00xp-m...
It looks like the letter carrier has to reach down to get to that mailbox. Yes, they can reach it, but I wonder about ergonomics. Not all mailboxes are the same height, so you probably have to reach down for some, but if this is a representative mailbox, I worry.
Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used the eSprinter as one example, not the only option. Maybe something like the Ford eTransit or the Rivian EDV is a better fit for postal deliveries. My point is that other delivery companies and postal services use commercial vehicles, most likely because that's the most cost-effective option. Considering the NGDV's atrocious efficiency, lack of hybrid option, and high unit costs, it seems far more likely that t…
Is it inefficient? Would it be more worthy to have two chassis designs, one for ICE and one for EV, to make it more efficient for the gas version? Would any hybrid drivetrain provide higher efficiency for similar build costs on the same chassis? My point would be that they weighed a lot of design considerations and I assume this is the best they could get that meets all of them. Like others said, other commercial del…
There's a wider meta point here which is always relevant: nobody comes into work planning to do a bad job.
I'd add the second point is: if you're not in the same field, then start with the assumption that the people who's work you're looking at had good reasons for their choices (and that it wasn't a conspiracy).
Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably in the minority, but I actually like the look of them. I find so many modern car designs indistinguishable from each other. Cars such a narrow range of design that's considered "good aesthetics" that everything looks so uniform.
Like wet putty https://www.blackbirdspyplane.com/p/why-do-new-cars-look-lik...
Is that writer from Philadelphia? Very quirky and colourful writing style!
Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
#125I've read so much knocking their appearance, which is so confusing to me. It's ultimately function over form in this case; who cares if you don't like how it looks? I can only dream that the visibility and safety of having features like such a low hood and large bumpers would be incorporated into other vehicles (i.e., every SUV ever).
A few ideas:
1) it kinda resembles Le Car
2) the junk in the frunk
3) and plus that extra forward bumper looks a bit like a telemark ski binding clip, and those ski folk never really looked especially smooth
4) it came out during DeJoy’s tenure, so it’s easy to imagine this is actually a shaming design
5) there are some very cute and charming EV designs out for Amazon FedEx UPS right now, and this isn’t up to the standard of those more forward looking (and admittedly bulbous but “of our time”) designs.
6) we’ll have to live, culturally, with this identity for a while. Seems a bit “meh”. I can see it now.. Kevin James as a future sitcom postal carrier and he will have a whole extra stage set up so he can have scenes in the enormous front cab of this thing. A la Art Carney as Ed Norton from the Honeymooners. We’ll get to visit the monstrosity during future Universal Studio backlot tours.
Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't fully buy this - if you optimized for aerodynamics and safety you'd get cars so far outside the aesthetic it would be ridiculed. No-one is making fun of the new USPS trucks for lack of fuel efficiency, they're saying it looks like a platypus. I can see a weaker version of what you're saying, that the intersection between the aesthetics a mass car market would accept and an acceptable fuel efficiency/safety yi…
Not really sure what you think would change if you did this?
Maybe I wasn't clear because I wasn't talking about doing anything, or suggesting that car manufacturers do anything, just I don't think this comment is the full story:
> Modern cars are all built to be as aerodynamic and fuel efficient as possible, and the constraints are virtually the same, so the designs are very similar as well.
Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
From my desk at home I see the lil LLV come down our private road every single day. With retrofitted LED lighting.
From my desk at home I see the lil LLV come down our private road every single day. They seem very durable. I've forgotten the number of times I've seen one plowing an improvised short cut through the scrub brush between desert ranches. Probably cuts an hour off the time with little change in comfort compared to using what passes for "roads" in some places.
Here they slide down the hills in the snow and ice and hit things (at low-ish speeds). One got stuck in a snow bank at a cross street near me a few winters ago and another one showed up and they played bumper cars until it was though though I'm sure that activity is not officially sanctioned. I can't imagine how that would have gone with the Metris vans they're using as a stop gap
Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
#128How could they not love them in comparison to the 30+ year old vehicles they've been driving?
Frequently "improvements" come at the expense of compromising some key feature for lots of users.
This is particularly true in tall organizations where the people doing procurement are far from the users.
Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
#129Sounds like they designed it for the target audience. A rare luxury these days for blue collar workers. Often designs focus on max profit
Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Rivian vans are commercially available.[1] Like the NGDV, they have a side door and an 80 inch interior height so that nobody has to stoop while in the cargo bay. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivian_EDV
The Rivian vans are commercially available. If you follow the link in your link, you'll see that while new Postal Service trucks are $60,000, the Rivian vans START a $83,000†, and it's simply not possible for the driver of one of those vans to reach a mailbox from inside the vehicle, which is how vast majority of what the new Postal Services will be used. Paying a 40% premium for less capability? That doesn't sound s…
I was just saying that the vehicle is commercially available, not that it was a better option for the US Postal Service. But $83,000 is the retail price. Anyone buying in bulk will get them for significantly cheaper. The $60k for the NGDV is the discounted price for a bulk buy of 50,000, and it's for a mix of ICE and EVs. The ICE vehicles are significantly cheaper to manufacture, so the EV price is probably close to the Rivian's bulk price, and the Rivian has significantly greater capabilities.