this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2024
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  • Trump transition weighs plan to cancel USPS contracts to build large EV fleet
    
    Postal service plans to spend billions on EV chargers and roughly 66,000 new trucks Contract cancellation likely part of sweeping executive order on EVs

Dec 6 (Reuters) - Donald Trump's transition team is considering canceling the U.S. Postal Service's contracts to electrify its delivery fleet, as part of a broader suite of executive orders targeting electric vehicles, according to three sources familiar with the plans.

The move, which could be unveiled in the early days of Trump’s administration that begins on Jan. 20, is in line with Trump's campaign promises to roll back President Joe Biden’s efforts to decarbonize U.S. transportation to fight climate change – an agenda Trump has said is unnecessary and potentially damaging to the economy.

Reuters has previously reported that Trump is planning to kill a $7,500 consumer tax credit for electric vehicle purchases, and plans to roll back Biden's stricter fuel-efficiency standards.

The sources told Reuters that Trump’s transition team is now reviewing how it can unwind the postal service's multibillion-dollar contracts, including with Oshkosh (OSK.N), and Ford (F.N) for tens of thousands of battery-driven delivery trucks and charging stations.

Oshkosh shares fell by roughly 5% to 105.65 per share after the Reuters report.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Crippling the USPS with additional fuel costs and shitty low mileage vehicles will work out great I'm sure.

[–] girthero 37 points 1 day ago (2 children)

As designed so they can privatize.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Not just that. They're going to cripple these services so bad that they don't even function and then blame their ineptitude on this sick remnant of the Democratic past, while they point at the flaws they created as justification.

You won't have a choice. You don't, actually.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Easier to control mail in ballots if it's privatized.

[–] rational_lib 20 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Whatever oil wants, oil gets.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 hours ago

After paying Trump millions, yeah

[–] fluxion 39 points 2 days ago

And his dipshit USPS head is still there waiting for his time to shine.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 day ago

Exclusive: Trump does stupid shit. more at 11.

[–] [email protected] 125 points 2 days ago (10 children)

Hey look! Let's just raise a huge middle finger to what's left of our ecosystems.

How did it go? Yes, humanity was destroyed, but for one moment we maximized profits!

[–] cybervseas 77 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Not to mention that carriers love the new trucks.

[–] Mirshe 13 points 2 days ago

Because they're heated and actually safe to drive and don't break down every two months like the old mail vehicles.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They'll still get the gas powered ones. Pretty much have to; those old mail trucks are far past their expiration date.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

You’re assuming trump intends to keep the USPS. He wants to destroy/privatise it. He said so all the way back in 2021, but at the time, didn’t have a mandate to actually accomplish it.

His cronies stand to make billions if the USPS is dismantled and all mail and shipping can go through their companies instead.

[–] [email protected] 70 points 2 days ago (3 children)

At this point, it's not really about maximizing profits, it's about trying to undo every change Biden made

[–] partial_accumen 34 points 2 days ago

At this point, it’s not really about maximizing profits, it’s about trying to undo every change Biden made

Its even worse. The new truck was likely by Dejoy, Trump's own appointee.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 days ago

Trump's is Putin's puppet. He's set to destroy whatever he can.

[–] mhague 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

The way he talked about Putin making Obama look dumb... he thinks that when you act like an asshole and tear down what someone built that it makes the other person look bad.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago

That's cause he's a bully. He's only ever brought people down to bring himself up. He thinks this is the same thing.

[–] AtariDump 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

There it is!

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 days ago

Those trucks get like six miles to the gallon, they're a massive liability on American finances. If the average price of gas changes by a cent that's something like nearly a million dollars difference. This isn't maximizing profit, this is just being petty to own the libs.

[–] FlyingSquid 30 points 2 days ago

Trump doesn't care. He's going to be dead in a few years and as far as he's concerned, the entire universe could instantly implode afterward.

In fact, he probably thinks the universe ends when his finite energy battery that keeps his fat ass from exercising gives out.

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[–] Clent 87 points 2 days ago (5 children)

More EVs means lower gas prices.

This drives up gas prices.

Killing the tax credit drives up gas prices.

It's quite remarkable how economically m ignorant a large section of America is. Supply and demand is the easiest model to understand and yet these voters have been positioned to work against their own best interest at a basic economic level.

And this is only one a hundreds of examples. Fascinating time to be alive.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

Dumb take.

Everybody knows the real cause of high gas prices is Joe Biden. Haven't you seen the stickers on the pumps? It says it right there..."I did that", with a picture of Biden's face.

[–] DrPop 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Better get my passive aggressive stickers ready

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

~~Passive~~ aggressive. FTFY

One of the main problems of the Dems is playing nice, and expecting rules to be followed.

It's time to fight using their weapons.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I was just thinking the other day someone needs to cut out a picture of Trump pointing for this purpose. If he actually implements all the things he's saying, there will be MANY opportunities to slap that on prices (even if it's only in memes online).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't understand why the left doesn't take a page out of the rights playback in this regard. We've seen how effective things like this and memes are at changing people's beliefs, yet nobody is willing to try it. They'd rather have some graduate-level economics professor try to explain how things work to a bunch of people with a 4th grade reading level in order to educate them, but this is an obviously flawed approach that doesn't work.

[–] brygphilomena 5 points 1 day ago

I mean it doesn't need to be a coordinated act from "the left".

Go print some stupid Trump stickers that say "I did that" and go stick them on everything. When gas goes up, stick them on the pumps. When electronics go up. Stick them on the boxes at best buy.

The issue isn't "the left" as some amorphous organization. It's that most people who align more left aren't that petty. The left is a much more disorganized, factions political position than the right. And that's because the GOP has worked relentlessly to build a cohesive base.

[–] TrueStoryBob 46 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

More EVs means lower gas prices.

This drives up gas prices.

I know, it's almost as though the multinational oil corporations and their shareholders who backed all three of Trump's campaigns want higher oil and gas prices for some reason... what could that be?

[–] Clent 18 points 2 days ago (8 children)

That part at least makes sense.

It's all the voters with their massive gas guzzling vehicles that are voting against their best interest. Over and over again.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Reuters has previously reported that Trump is planning to kill a $7,500 consumer tax credit for electric vehicle purchases

Noooo! My friends just bought EVs and they're gonna be so smug if I don't get the credit!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Clearly the way to bring down the price of EVs must be to tariff the import ones and get rid of tax credits on all of them...right? Right?

You catch more flies with vinegar.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago (2 children)

usps should go on strike if this happens

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago

Keep in mind, this is a new Gilded Age. Trump would most certainly call in the Pinkertons for some good ol' fashioned strike breaking.

[–] redhorsejacket 4 points 1 day ago

Not an option for most, I'd wager. Federal employees are free to unionize, however it is a felony crime for a federal employee to strike against the government. Furthermore, it's a felony to even assert that this is right you have, or to join an organization which asserts that right. The government's HR department, the Office of Personnel Management, is able to bar any person who violates these provisions from federal employment for life.

Laws more or less to this effect have been on the books since the 40s and 50s, but the issue came to a head in the early 80s when thousands of air traffic controllers went on strike against the FAA after contract negotiations fell through. Reagan ordered the controllers back to work, and, when they refused, summarily fired them. Where they couldn't be replaced be scabs, he activated the military to fill in, citing national security. According to the last article I read, of the 13,000 striking employees, 11,000 were fired and barred from future employment (though I think Clinton rolled some of that back in the 90s).

Considering it's clear that the GOP benefits from government dysfunction, and does everything they can to erode public faith in institutions, striking postal workers would be a gift served on a silver platter for them. Trump will giddily fire every last one of the strikers, be praised for being a big strong man who doesn't negotiate with plebs, and the postal service will be de facto shutter, even if it still exists in as diminished a form as they can get away with while still satisfying whatever requirements there are to have such an institution.

Obviously striking always carries risk, but asking someone to almost certainly throw away their livelihoods for a course of action that will likely only accelerate Trump et al.'s goals is unreasonable.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 2 days ago (4 children)

The existing fleet is past aging out, they are often held together with patch welds and duct tape in my area. Is the plan ride it until the wheels literally fall off, with no replacements in pipeline?

[–] Eldritch 96 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Actually yes. They want to privatize it so that they can make money on it. Failure is the goal.

[–] themeatbridge 44 points 2 days ago

"Failure is the goal" needs to be the subtitle of every news story for the foreseeable future.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Yeah but even if that's the play - could private business even fill the gap? USPS stretches the final miles deep into places not profitable to deliver to. Businesses, doing business stuff, use it to economically have their products available to the rural communities that voted these policies in.. it's all so confusing.

Is mailing a letter automated space communism? Sheesh.

[–] jumjummy 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

And ironically, it’s the flyover deep red parts of the country that are the most rural, and therefore the most unprofitable legs of these delivery services. As with so many other GOP policies, it would mostly impact their supporters.

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[–] IMongoose 50 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Don't worry, Elon Musk has a much better idea for a postal vehicle. All he needs is 10 years and 1 trillion dollars and he'll be ready with the prototype.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago

And then the prototype will be just the regular robotaxi where he stuffed a bunch of letters on the passender seat. Car is meant go from house to house and then honk untill people come down and pick up their stuff from the seat. Unfortunately, the vehicle only works in movie studios with a pre-programmed route. Those of you not living in a movie studio will have to pick up their stuff at the next Tesla dealer for a small fee of $10.

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[–] Crackhappy 14 points 2 days ago

I remember reading Dante's Inferno for the first time. I'm glad to be reminded of that.

[–] marx2k 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

I can't say watching red wisconsin counties get fucked hard by Trump doing the thing everyone expected him to do isn't satisfying

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