College of Michigan (U-M) researchers declare “considerably flawed” evaluation led the US Postal Service (USPS) to downplay the environmental advantages of electrical mail vans.
The Postal Service has used its evaluation to justify not making its complete fleet of next-generation mail vans electrical, which has drawn criticism from the White Home, Congress, and environmental teams. U-M claims its researchers performed a extra rigorous research that also confirmed a a lot bigger emissions discount than the unique evaluation.
“U-M researchers performed a cradle-to-grave greenhouse-gas emissions evaluation—generally known as a life-cycle evaluation, or LCA—of the 2 situations and reached some vastly completely different conclusions than the Postal Service did,” the college mentioned in a press launch. The LCA has a broader scope than the unique USPS research, which solely thought-about emissions from precise use of the autos.
USPS Subsequent Era Supply Car – Oshkosh Protection
The talk over electrifying the USPS mail truck fleet began greater than 18 months in the past, with the shock announcement that solely 10% of the USPS next-generation supply vans can be electrical. That led environmental teams and a coalition of states to sue the USPS.
The USPS gave into strain this summer season, and now plans for 50% of its preliminary procurement of the next-generation autos to be electrical, and when mixed with different forms of autos within the fleet, 40% can be electrical.
U-M researchers regarded on the unique plan of 10% EVs, evaluating it to an all-electric fleet. They discovered that greenhouse gasoline emissions beneath the ten%-EV situation can be 15% larger than estimated by the USPS, whereas emissions from an all-electric fleet can be 8% decrease than the USPS estimate.
USPS Subsequent Era Supply Car – Oshkosh Protection
The U-M research additionally factored in estimated reductions in electrical energy grid emissions over the focused 20-year lifespan of the brand new mail vans. The USPS research appeared to imagine the grid will not get any cleaner than the current—however after all it virtually definitely will.
That makes a giant distinction. With grid decarbonization estimates factored in, U-M researchers predict that an all-electric fleet would end in as much as 63% decrease greenhouse gasoline emissions than the company estimated, over the lifetime of the fleet.
These findings recommend the USPS must be electrifying at a price a lot larger than even the raised 40% threshold, Greg Keoleian, senior writer of the research, mentioned within the launch. The Inflation Discount Act, which leads to an in depth revamp of the EV tax credit score and, for a time, a restricted variety of eligible EVs, included one other $3 billion towards USPS electrical autos—so the second for a higher dedication is now.
