Yes, It ‘Looks Like a Duck,’ but Carriers Like the New Mail Truck
Yes, It ‘Looks Like a Duck,’ but Carriers Like the New Mail Truck
The electric trucks have a side cargo door, more space and, critically, air-conditioning, promising some long-overdue relief for carriers, who haven’t had an upgrade since the 1980s.
Such a unique and fun design is going to stand out in our collective culture. Kids are going to love this thing.
Form follows function, who gives a shit how something looks when it's useful?
they look so goofy that I burst out laughing any time I see it, they're just so cute! It's like the opposite reasoning of laughing at a cybertruck but the same outcome
Though I bet carriers are like Shhhh this has AC.. Who TF cares what it looks like?
Some people that realize how much of an upgrade this is. The original carriers (Grumman LLV) used the same body-on-frame chasis as the Chevy S-10 Blazer and used a GM-sourced 2.5L I4 engine ("Iron Duke") which was infamous for catching on fire. In other words, nothing has changed in 40 years.
I'm so incredibly happy for these postal carriers!
Me, too. Out here we get snow, dark weather, rain for months, and they have to drive on gravel and on unpaved shoulders in RWD un-air conditioned and poorly heated tin cans.
Plus they don't make much in the way of scratch at all so this is the first change they need. When I ask the letter carriers they say that they likely won't see the new rigs for at least a year on the Left Hand Coast.
(the second thing they need is to be making lots more money because they don't make enough to deal with customers like me much less their current vehicles)
These are huge upgrades over the old trucks. The proportions are sized to fit the features they need, like fast, ergonomic access to the back, and better visibility than any other car on the road.
Good on them for designing a good vehicle instead of letting some sports car fanatic dictate a concept car idea.
Taking courage in your design will win over the car fanatics in 5 or so years when the next design trend starts, and the reliability and function will mean that these will keep looking good 30 years from now.
It also catches fire noticeably less than the old trucks
They look a bit futuristic in a weird way, to me. I think they could end up looking iconic.
Looks like an asset from a pixar film with the blank background. Pictures of the real thing in the article it looks wonky but it's more about function over form.
Reminds me of that little vehicle from Flight of the Navigator that delivers the food, then he hides in it to escape the facility.
Bruh, I've been trying to figure out why they looked so familiar! Thanks. This has been bugging me periodically for a while.
Looks like their mail totes but upside-down.
I like the aesthetics and color scheme.
It looks like what mail trucks would look like in Back to to the Future II.
That's because they spend the majority of their time inside of it and work vehicles are supposed to be function over form.
The ACs came none to soon. Summers are not going to get any cooler. I always feel bad for the carriers on summer days as it is.
It looks goofy but practical, I kinda like it.
I think it's just a case of people needing to get used to it.
I still consider schoolbusses with no noses goofy looking
It's goofy because it's just goofy looking, but that doesn't make it a bad thing, I love these goofy little vans :3
I think it's going to be a dorky iconic image soon. Give it a few years and it'll be normalized. Branding even.
I would 100% put a dorky USPS truck sticker on my water bottle
What’s wrong with ducks?
(Alright. Im aware ducks are rapey bastards. Most animals are, at least every animal I looked into, which isn’t that many. But we won’t be telling kids this.)
As a person who grew up with a creek full of ducks behind my house, I can say that rapey is just the beginning. I have witnessed multiple drownings by rape followed by hours of necrophilia. I have seen ducks following a vicious gang rape swimming around with bald necks from having all of their feathers ripped out.
They are violent. I have seen males group up and rape and murder fellow males and then attack and rape the corpse for the rest of the day.
When I see a protective mother duck having her babies chased around by kids, I stop them. “You have no idea what that poor girl endured to have that row of ducklings following her around. Leave her alone!”
I shudder at the thought of a more violent animal.
What’s wrong with ducks?
Look, you're old enough to know this by now: you're really a beautiful swan.
Just needs a horn tha quacks and they're all set.
I like the truck. Looks like it's nice for the driver!
They're goofy but in a cute cartoony way. I love them.
But does it quack like a duck?
Wouldn't it be wonderful if their horns made a quaking sound?
Just a really faint memory but I recall during COVID there was big negativity with USPS not doing their due diligence to select the best option and some other shady USPS dealings at the time.
I wonder if they changed the proposed vehicle since then.
Originally they wanted to mainly procure ICE vehicles, because Trump. Then they changed it to mainly EVs because the reasonable people were in charge for a time. Those EVs have generally been well received by the drivers. Who knows what happens next.
Based off of memory, they didn't, and this contract was awarded to a defense contractor who built this thing that only gets 13MPG instead of the EV option we were told we'd be getting and I believe they each cost well over $100k per unit. They were forced to build more EVs as promised but these still cost $192k per truck, about as much as a Lamborghini Huracán.
I wonder what they'll do with the old ones? Government auction site maybe?
Nope. LLV's are exclusively scrapped by the USPS at end of life. I tend to think thats mostly to retain their image as a USPS only vehicle and prevent potential impersonation for crime, which is the same reason UPS has a "always scrap" policy as well.
There are a very few select examples that have been sold private party by not-the-usps, and do exist out there but there will be no great flood of EOL mail trucks. Most of them are so incredibly beat at this point that they barely work anyway.
Wow, I never considered how I don’t see mail trucks posing as other things. Thats a fun fact.
It’s like never seeing old Pizza Hut buildings turned into other things.
Those UPS trucks are neat. They would make fun food trucks.
The front kinda reminds me of a ski boot that you shove into a binding…downhill alpine mail slalom?!?!
A real auto designer could have made this look less stoopid! This was a choice.
Who cares what it looks like? It's a work vehicle.
