Feb 22 2010

The Greening of Snail Mail

Posted by: Jana Morris

 

USPS.JPG

Electric vehicle maker ZAP, based in Santa Rosa, has been selected along with four other firms in a competitive bid held nationwide by the USPS to provide clean vehicles for its more than 140,000 mail carriers. ZAP was awarded an engineering contract for the design and development of an electric version of the Postal Service’s Long Life Vehicle (LLV). They will convert the gasoline mail truck to run on electricity.

This is part of a bigger program of the USPS to develop a clean vehicle fleet, including some cute three wheeled package delivering vehicles previously featured in Next100. 

“The thing that is truly exciting is that the Postal Service is considering adding 20,000 electric vehicles to its fleet, which alone will be a tremendous boost to the entire electric vehicle industry,” said Alex Campbell, a spokesperson for ZAP. “This is definitely a sign of great things to come for electric transportation technologies.”
ZAP executives say the USPS has 218,684 vehicles that travel more than 1.25 billion miles each year. The vehicles consumed 444 million gallons of fuel in 2009, costing roughly $1.1 billion. ZAP says USPS's vehicles average 10.4 miles per gallon since most drive slowly and make frequent stops with the engine idling between mailboxes.
When enough vehicles are ready, a trial will most likely take place in Washington DC, giving the feds the opportunity to monitor the vehicle’s cost and reliability.
Who knows, ZAP may be coming to a mailbox near you.

 

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