What will the new Post Office delivery vehicle look like?

From the old Grumman LLV

Here are the contenders:

AM General

VT Hackney

Mahindra

Karlson Morgan Olson

Oshkosh and Ford

Here is the rest of the story...

https://www.foxnews.com/auto/special-delivery-new-u-s-postal-service-truck-to-be-picked-this-year

The Fords front bumper is messing with me. 
Honestly the AM General looks like the best one. 

I had not seen the Ford version yet.  Interesting because it is the "most production vehicle" of any of the choices.  Very unique is that the winner has to commit to having parts available for 20+ years.  They will be a lot of vehicle changes in the next 20 years. 

The current vehicle is a S10 frame with an Iron Duke engine.   

I talked to Duane, my mail guy about these new trucks.  He is also the union steward.  He tells me that he has had the same truck since new and it has 138k miles on it for his route of all driving in this small town.   At 138k in 20 years is less than 7k miles per year.   

The AMG and Mahindra are the only two that look like clean-sheet designs. Everything else looks like it was built out of masmatched parts bins and Erector sets.

John Welsh said:

I had not seen the Ford version yet.  Interesting because it is the "most production vehicle" of any of the choices.  Very unique is that the winner has to commit to having parts available for 20+ years.  They will be a lot of vehicle changes in the next 20 years. 

The current vehicle is a S10 frame with an Iron Duke engine.   

I talked to Duane, my mail guy about these new trucks.  He is also the union steward.  He tells me that he has had the same truck since new and it has 138k miles on it for his route of all driving in this small town.   At 138k in 20 years is less than 7k miles per year.   

A friend of mine works maintance on them, he said some of the local ones in columbus are sub 100k, but have had 2 frame saver kits installed. 

How do you make a box on wheels look uglier?

What I find interesting is the the Post Office has been buying a lot of Ram ProMasters as "fill-in" vehicles until these new LLVs arrive.    Eslewhere in the world, these vans are available as Right Hand Drive but what they are buying is not RHD.  Seems like an easy answer.  Further more, these vans as RHD are not being considered for the LLV program.  

The AM General model is certainly charmingly goofy enough.

The current LLVs had some requirement of a small turning radius.  The goal being that it could turn around in a 2 lane road.  The further goal of avoiding backing the vehicle by u-turning the vehicle in a tight space.  To achieve this goal is why the current LLV has the goofy setup of the front axle being narrower than the rear.  

I don't know what the required turning circle is on the new LLV but the AM General model looks like it could be the only one to do it in the same space as the current LLV.  

In reply to John Welsh :

Well that adds to your promaster statement, doesn't it have a really really good turning radius for what it is?

You would think something like the city or connect with a bigger back cab added on would be the optimal solution.

In reply to Professor_Brap :

That’s amazing because our mail never runs during a snow.  

Professor_Brap said:

The Fords front bumper is messing with me. 
Honestly the AM General looks like the best one. 

My understanding is that the goofy front bumper is actually a stipulation of the contract. Something having to do with being able to survive a decent impact with no damage. Apprently mail carriers run into stuff a lot.

Mahindra is dangling the possibility of building an entirely new plant in the US to produce the new LLV. A certain someone sitting in an oblong circle office likes hearing stuff like that, so it might be a way for them to tilt things in  their favor.

Odd that you say RHD isn't being considered John. All the prototypes appear to be that way. I don't know all the details of the contract however.

I want the AM General, as it looks like a French farmer could drive it through the fields without braking an egg, thus it'd keep my RockAuto deliveries safe, but I'm betting that Ford gets the contract. 

I would like to see the specs on frontal impact that require these carnival-bumper-cars additions. 

None of those are even close.  It's going to look a lot like this:

In reply to The0retical :

RHD is required by the contract.  The USPS is currently buying LHD ProMasters as "fill-in" vehicles until the contract is decided.  It just seems to me that these "fill-in" buys could easily be RHD now since they are sold in that manner elsewhere in the world.  

I like the wheels on the Mahindra. They remind me of the wheels on an old Alfa or something. 

John Welsh said:

What I find interesting is the the Post Office has been buying a lot of Ram ProMasters as "fill-in" vehicles until these new LLVs arrive.    Eslewhere in the world, these vans are available as Right Hand Drive but what they are buying is not RHD.  Seems like an easy answer.  Further more, these vans as RHD are not being considered for the LLV program.  

I spotted one of those out delivering the mail too, and thought it was in the running.

I hope the post office looked at postal trucks from other countries , a simple Google image search !

My postman walks his route , but the postman down at my friend's house drives a truck to every mailbox , stopping every 50 ft , 

That has to be hard on the brakes and transmission.

One thing that has changed since the last change is how many packages the Postal service delivers from Amazon and eBay purchases !

These all look like they’d be a great base for a mini camper.  Would be nice if they’d be purchasable by individuals whenever the contract is decided.

I suspect that FCA has not submitted a proposal for a RHD Promaster because of the 20 year support clause. When have Fiat or Chrysler ever supported anything that long?!

Just about to say the same thing about Ford. They hold on to parts as long as they must by law and then it's gone. No berks given.

californiamilleghia said:

I hope the post office looked at postal trucks from other countries , a simple Google image search !

My postman walks his route , but the postman down at my friend's house drives a truck to every mailbox , stopping every 50 ft , 

That has to be hard on the brakes and transmission.

One thing that has changed since the last change is how many packages the Postal service delivers from Amazon and eBay purchases !

Guess it depends on the neighborhood. 

My old house in Sand Springs, all the homes have the mailboxes on the porch. So the mailman would park, load up as much mail as he could carry and walk his route back to his vehicle. Move it, load up and continue again until he was done. 

My current neighborhood all the mailboxes are on the street and he drives. Judging by how quickly he can load letters into the mailbox (and how quickly he drives), unless he has to deliver a package to the front door.........he would have to sprint to between mailboxes to be as fast.

californiamilleghia said:

My postman walks his route , but the postman down at my friend's house drives a truck to every mailbox , stopping every 50 ft , 

That has to be hard on the brakes and transmission.

A hybrid or EV would handle that very well - regen braking and moving off on electric power to save wear on the transmission. Some of the protoypes are hybrids but I can't find info on which ones, other than the fact that the VTHackney model is a plug-in series hybrid. It would be silly to choose a regular ICE vehicle now, I'm surprised that any were entered.

Edit: Found details here:

https://www.trucks.com/2019/02/04/postal-service-wrapping-testing-mail-truck-prototypes/

The AM General and Oshkosh-Ford are ICE vehicles, the VTHackney and Mahindra are hybrids, and the Karsan Morgan Olson is an EV.