Exclusive | USPS EV fleet behind schedule with $3B in taxpayer funds spent — and only 612 trucks built

Sheetal Kumar Nehra December 3, 2025Last Updated: December 3, 2025

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Exclusive | USPS EV fleet behind schedule with $3B in taxpayer funds spent — and only 612 trucks built — Sen. Joni Ernst, who chairs the Senate’s DOGE caucus, said in July of this year that with $2.6 billion paid to Oshkosh and 250 trucks produced so far she was “working to cancel the order” made by the Biden administration.

WASHINGTON — The USPS’s plan to replace its entire fleet with electric trucks is lagging far behind schedule, with the department having spent more than $3 billion of tax dollars and only managed to put 612 battery‑powered delivery vans on the road, a figure that comes from a letter the Postal Service sent to Sen. Joni Ernst (R‑Iowa) and that the Post was able to obtain.

The money came from President Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which earmarked $3 billion for what Ernst later blasted as a green “boondoggle.” Almost all of that funding went to Oshkosh, a Wisconsin‑based defense contractor that was supposed to build the new mail trucks.

Ernst, who chairs the Senate’s DOGE caucus, told Congress in July that she was “working to cancel the order and return the money to the sender, the American people,” after Oshkosh had taken $2.6 billion and produced only 250 vehicles. She was hoping that a rescissions package could wipe the bill clean.

An internal USPS letter dated November 10 said only 612 Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDV BEVs) were on the road, delivering mail at 15 locations nationwide. USPS Vice President of Government Relations and Public Policy, Peter Pastre, said that the number “grows weekly” in a follow‑up letter on November 17.

Given that Oshkosh built 362 NGDV BEVs in just over 100 days, the production rate now appears to be three to four trucks a day. The letter also revealed that 2,010 Ford E‑Transits were already out delivering mail at 65 sites, and that 6,727 other EVs had been delivered but not yet put into use. These are conventional left‑hand drive cars and can’t take the same routes as the right‑hand drive BEVs.

Pastre added that 6,651 charging ports had been “commissioned at 75 sites,” pointing out that none of the $3 billion appropriated under the IRA will be available for rescission.

“Here is a ‘fact check’ for the USPS — spending $1.7 billion to produce only 612 EVs is a tremendous waste,” Ernst repeated, noting that the $10 billion Biden‑era program had aimed to bring the fleet up to 106,480 new vehicles by September 30, 2028, with about 60,000 next‑generation models and 35,000 battery‑electric ones.

The U.S. Postal Service has warned that more than 35,000 new vehicles were now on the road, but many still run on internal combustion engines. Pastre explained that the agency had plans to acquire 40,250 such vehicles, of which 26,341 had already been bought, including 2,602 NGDV ICE units, 14,489 Mercedes Metris, and 9,250 Ram Promasters.

In a recent press release, USPS said it was still on track to acquire 45,000 battery‑electric next‑generation delivery vehicles and 21,000 commercial‑off‑the‑shelf BEVs by the end of fiscal year 2028, though it did not clarify how many of those were truly electric.

Meanwhile, President Trump has suggested that the Postal Service could be merged with the Department of Commerce, citing a staggering $9.5 billion loss for the agency in fiscal year 2024. A spokesperson for USPS has not yet responded to a request for comment.

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