- Watch how Tesla Cybertruck performs in a crash safety test against ICE pickup trucks Tesla Oracle – Elon Musk, Tesla, SpaceX News
- Honesty, Journalism And The Perils Of Access: A Defense Of Jason Cammisa’s Cybertruck ‘Review’ The Autopian
- Marques Brownlee reveals biggest concern with Telsa Cybertruck after testing Dexerto
- Tesla’s VP of Investor Relations Defends MKBHD’s Cybertruck Review Against “He Should Stay in His Lane” Comments & Production Quality Concerns Torque News
- Tesla CyberTruck Demolished Online After Crash Test Footage Shows It Could Turn You Into Pancake Pedestrian.TV
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: trucks
Gaza aid trucks stranded as Israel-Hamas war resumes – Al Jazeera English
- Gaza aid trucks stranded as Israel-Hamas war resumes Al Jazeera English
- After just dozens of aid trucks enter Gaza today, US urges Israel to allow delivery to reach truce-time levels The Times of Israel
- Palestine Red Crescent Society: Response Report as of Saturday, October 7th 2023, 6:00 PM Until Sunday, November 29th 2023, 00:00 AM – occupied Palestinian territory ReliefWeb
- Residents are forced to mix cooking oil with petrol in Gaza Al Jazeera English
- With truce over, only dozens of aid trucks enter Gaza, none include fuel — COGAT The Times of Israel
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Israel-Gaza war live updates: Aid trucks cross Rafah border, providing first relief to besieged Gaza Strip – The Washington Post
- Israel-Gaza war live updates: Aid trucks cross Rafah border, providing first relief to besieged Gaza Strip The Washington Post
- Israel-Hamas war: Rafah crossing opens to allow aid into Gaza – BBC News BBC News
- Egypt’s border crossing opens to let a trickle of desperately needed aid into besieged Gaza Yahoo News
- Global National: Oct. 20, 2023 | Rafah border crossing stays shut for now despite Israel-Egypt deal Global News
- Israel-Hamas war live: talks reportedly ‘ongoing’ for more hostage releases The Guardian
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Best Auto News From CES 2023: Electric Pickup Trucks, Flying Cars, and More
CES is so much more than just a trade show for the latest televisions, phones and wacky tech. It’s also one of the largest and most popular automotive shows in the US. If you want to know where the travel industry is headed, then there’s no better place to be than Las Vegas in January.
This year at CES 2023, hundreds of exhibitors from across the automotive sector have already unveiled some of their latest products and cutting-edge technologies. BMW announced the futuristic i Vision Dee electric car, while Sony and Honda revealed their EV prototype Afeela, integrated with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine technology to provide next-level entertainment, communication and safety features.
If you want to take a closer look at the new auto technology that’s been unveiled at CES 2023 so far, check it out below. For more, here are the wildest highlights we’ve seen this week and the wackiest tech, too.
Mercedes-Benz is one of the first car companies in the world to get immersive Dolby Atmos surround sound tech
Dolby Atmos is immersive surround sound technology that you’ll really only find at the theatre or in a few pricey speakers, soundbars and headphones for consumers. Unlike your typical left and right audio experience, Dolby Almost brings you sounds from every direction imaginable, and that immersive audio experience is coming to the Mercedes-Benz Maybach. Check out our experience with Dolby Atmos at CES 2023 in the video above.
Dolby Atmos is currently only available in a few select luxury vehicles.
BMW’s color-changing concept car
BMW unveiled the i Vision Dee, a futuristic midsize electric sedan with a digital assistant, color-changing technology and an augmented-reality windshield. The car’s exterior is equipped with 240 E Ink segments that can be controlled individually; you could go with a solid color if you want, but each separate panel can be customized, so you can go wild with patchwork designs. But the most exciting new feature has to be the fully digital, mixed reality windshield. You’ll be able to decide how much “digital content” you see in front of you while you drive, such as driving information, communications, AR projections and virtual worlds.
Crank the Mixed Reality Slider to max and the windshield is filled with information or even fully virtual worlds.
BMW
Sony and Honda’s electric sedan has Unreal Engine-designed interfaces
Sony and Honda unveiled the Afeela, an electric midsized sedan, at CES on Wednesday. The alliance between the two companies works like this: Honda provides the automotive engineering and after-sales service part, while Sony covers the tech side of things, including electronics, sensors and entertainment. The front of the EV has a built-in display that can be used to show off information to other drivers and pedestrians, while the entire body comes equipped with dozens of cameras and sensors to detect objects and provide an autonomous driving experience. Inside, the interface of the car is powered by Qualcomm technology and Epic Games’ Unreal Engine to enhance the driving experience and provide a quality entertainment system.
The two companies plan to have preorders up and running for the EV in 2025.
James Martin/CNET
Amazon Ring now wants to live in your car
Amazon’s Ring creates security cameras for your home and business, to provide security and allow you to keep an eye on package deliveries and other activities, and now it wants to do the same thing for your automobile. The Ring Car Cam is a dashboard-mounted dual-facing camera that can record both inside and outside your car, while you’re driving or parked. While the camera stores footage locally, it can connect to your Wi-Fi network whenever you’re parked nearby to upload footage. You can also get LTE support to always stay connected, allowing you to view a live feed in case someone else has your car; you’ll need to pay for a Ring Protect Go subscription for that. You can preorder the Ring Car Cam for $200 right now, or wait to buy it when it’s released in February for $250.
You can remotely talk with anyone in the car thanks to the camera’s built-in speaker and microphone.
Ring
An electric pickup truck… that follows you around?
Ram unveiled the Ram 1500 Revolution BEV, its first ever fully electric pickup truck, at CES 2023. The electric truck is equipped with back-swinging suicide doors, three rows of seats, an AR display, an AI personal assistant and “themes” for the interior of the car. For example, you can enable party mode or relax mode — each changes the seat positions and orientation, lighting, sound system and even the opacity of the skylight. But the most interesting thing about the electric truck has to be its “shadow mode” feature, which allows the truck to follow the driver around, sort of like a dog, when they’re on foot.
Arriving in 2024.
Stellantis
Nvidia will bring its gaming platform to select cars
GeForce Now, Nvidia’s popular cloud gaming service that allows you to play games like Fortnite and Apex Legends on your phone, tablet and TV, is soon coming to your car. During its showcase at CES 2023, Nvidia announced a partnership with Hyundai Motor Group, Polestar and BYD to integrate the gaming platform to several internet-connected vehicles. A passenger in the car can load up GeForce Now in a built-in display and play games such as Rocket League with a connected gamepad.
More than a thousand games will be available.
Nvidia
Google launched its new Android Auto update
On Thursday, Google announced the release of its latest Android Auto software. The redesign prioritizes navigation, communication and music — for starters, Maps is now closer to the driver’s seat, making it easier to view, and there’s also a new quick launcher that lets you access the apps you need most, faster. A new split-screen layout adapts to your screen size and orientation, and Google Assistant provides smart suggestions like arrival time sharing, message replies and music or podcast reminders. If you have one of the latest Pixel or Samsung phones, you’ll soon be able to make WhatsApp calls via Android Auto.
Android Auto will better adapt to a variety of screen sizes and aspect ratios.
Oh yeah, a four-seater flying car was announced
Flying cars haven’t quite taken off yet, but we seem to be one step closer. US company Aska announced what may be the world’s first four-seater flying car at CES this year. The Aska A5 is an electric-powered vehicle, the size of a small SUV, that can travel on the road and up to 250 miles by air with a single charge. It’s also equipped with a small gas engine that can give you an extra 50 miles. And you can expect it to hit the roads (and the skies) pretty soon. According to CEO Guy Kaplinsky, the Federal Aviation Administration could approve the A5 this month, and the company plans to begin a ride-sharing service with a fleet of its flying vehicles in 2026. The A5 comes with a hefty price tag of $789,000, and you can pay a $5,000 deposit to get on the preorder list right now.
Why fight traffic on the street when you can just fly over it?
Bree Fowler/CNET
USPS trucks go EV by 2026 after Biden push
The Postal Service will spend $9.6 billion on the vehicles and associated infrastructure, officials said, including $3 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden and congressional Democrats’ landmark climate, health-care and tax law.
By 2026, the agency expects to purchase zero-emissions delivery trucks almost exclusively, DeJoy said. It’s a major achievement for a White House climate agenda that leans heavily on reducing greenhouse gases from vehicles.
The mail agency must replace its fleet of 30-year-old trucks, which lack air conditioning, air bags and other standard safety features. They get only 8.2 mpg.
The eight-year journey to procure new vehicles has been arduous and marked by political battles. White House officials slammed an earlier procurement proposal and said that courts or Congress could intervene to block the purchase of carbon-belching delivery trucks that posed a permanent risk to the planet and public health.
Fleet electrification is a major pillar of Biden’s plan to fight rising global temperatures. Biden has ordered the federal government to purchase only zero-emissions vehicles by 2035. With more than 217,000 vehicles, the Postal Service has the largest share of the U.S. government’s civilian fleet.
EV boosters and environmental activists have said that an electric postal fleet could be a major lift for the auto industry’s investment in clean vehicles.
Biden administration officials hope it will persuade the Postal Service’s competitors to accelerate their own climate pledges, many of which rely on carbon-free delivery trucks.
“I think it puts pressure on them to up their game, too,” John Podesta, White House senior adviser for clean energy innovation, told The Post. “If the Postal Service can move out with this kind of aggressive plan, the public expects these companies that have made these long-term announcements to catch up in the near term.”
Amazon, whose founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post, has promised to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, and holds a close to 20 percent stake in electric truck maker Rivian. It’s in the midst of amassing an armada of 100,000 Rivian EVs that it hopes to have on the road by 2030.
FedEx has committed to carbon-neutral operations by 2040 with plans to completely electrify its pickup and delivery fleet by then. It has promised to purchase exclusively electric vehicles by 2030.
UPS has plans to go carbon-neutral by 2050 and use 40 percent alternative fuels by 2025.
The Postal Service will continue buying internal combustion engine vehicles because half of the fleet still consists of delivery vans and trucks that travel longer distances to ferry mail between cities and states.
“What this does is accelerate our ability to maximize electric vehicles,” DeJoy said.
The Postal Service is restructuring its vast mail processing and delivery network to minimize unnecessary transportation and fit facilities specifically for EVs. It will concentrate letter carriers at centralized locations rather than using small-town post offices to take advantage of existing infrastructure and cost savings associated with electric vehicles.
When the Postal Service published its first vehicle replacement plan in 2021, it was set to make only 10 percent of the fleet electric. The rest would have been gas-powered trucks — with 8.6 mpg fuel economy with the air conditioning running — that could be retrofitted to battery power later by swapping out parts under the hood. But postal officials quickly abandoned that strategy because of cost and technical complexity.
Democrats in Congress, state officials and environmental activists were infuriated. Sixteen states, plus the District of Columbia, sued to block the 10 percent electric plan, as did some of the country’s leading environmental groups.
Podesta said he confronted DeJoy about his agency’s plans when the two began talking in September. By then, the Postal Service said 40 percent of its new trucks would be EVs.
“I told him that I thought the original plans were completely inadequate,” said Podesta, who described the conversations as friendly and purposeful. “I just think we thought it was critical to our success and the overall [climate change] program. So we stuck with it, pushed it, he pushed back, and we pushed back.”
DeJoy said that Podesta was “receptive” and helped work through the mail agency’s chronic budget problems.
“Our mission is to deliver mail to 163 million addresses first, and to the extent that we can align with other missions of other agencies and the president, I want to do that,” DeJoy said.
Some of the postmaster’s fiercest critics praised the announcement. Adrian Martinez, an attorney at climate activist group Earthjustice who is leading a lawsuit against the agency over its vehicle procurement, called the new truck purchase plan “a sea change in the federal fleet.”
“In the course of a year we’ve gone from a USPS plan to buy trucks with the fuel economy of a late 1990s Hummer to a visionary commitment to modernize mail delivery in the United States with electric trucks,” he said. “We’re grateful to the Biden administration for stepping in to put us on course for an electric future.”
Tesla Semi production starts, Pepsi to get first electric trucks
Elon Musk announced that Tesla is starting Tesla Semi production and Pepsi is going to get the first electric trucks starting December 1st.
Tesla Semi, an all-electric class 8 truck, was unveiled back in 2017. At the time, it was supposed to come as soon as 2019.
The vehicle program was delayed for years, and until recently, it wasn’t expected to go into production until 2023.
However, Elon Musk surprisingly announced in August that the Tesla Semi would actually start shipping later this year.
Today, the CEO confirmed that Tesla has started production of the electric truck:
Musk reiterated that the vehicle has a range of 500 miles (805 km) on a single charge.
Tesla Semi electric trucks are being produced in Nevada near Tesla’s Gigafactory. Last year, Electrek exclusively reported that Tesla was building a production line for the Tesla Semi in a new building near the Gigafactory
At the time, we were told that the production equipment installed would be for about 5 electric trucks per week. Tesla plans to move to higher volume production at Gigafactory Texas.
In today’s tweet, Musk announced that Pepsico would get the first Tesla Semi deliveries on December 1st.
After the launch of Tesla Semi in 2017, PepsiCo placed one of the biggest orders for Tesla Semi: 100 electric trucks to add to its fleet.
The company planned to use 15 of those trucks for a project to turn its Frito-Lay Modesto, California, site into a zero-emission facility.
Last year, PepsiCo said that it expected to take deliveries of those 15 Tesla Semi trucks by the end of the year before it was delayed again.
While the company didn’t get its Tesla Semi trucks last year, Tesla did install a Megacharger station for the trucks at its Modesto facility, which led many to believe that it would be the first to take delivery of the electric truck.
Electrek’s Take
This is exciting. Tesla Semi has real potential to change the game in the trucking industry with its useful 500-mile range and efficiency of less than 2 kWh per mile.
At $0.20 per kWh, that’s a $0.40 cost of operation per mile. That’s about half the cost of operation of a diesel truck.
Considering companies can spend up to $80,000 on fuel per year per truck, you can imagine how it could be really attractive to go electric.
If successful, it could quickly electrify the trucking industry and significantly cut emissions from freight transport.
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Ukrainian soldiers are refurbishing abandoned Russian tanks and trucks
KYIV, Ukraine — It was an early and delightful symbol of underdog resistance. Dubbed the “John Deere Brigade,” Ukrainian tractors were shown all over social media lugging away hastily abandoned Russian military equipment, from tanks to self-propelled artillery systems to complicated air defense platforms, worth tens of millions of dollars. Western predictions that Ukraine would fall to its invaders in as little as three days proved wildly off base. The breadbasket of Europe could punch above its weight. And now it was in the repo business.
Around the time of the Battle of Kyiv, captured Russian vehicles were generally just given a quick coat of paint and liberally decked out with Ukrainian flags before being sent back out to fight their previous owners. But what was at first an organic and ad hoc tractor effort by Ukrainian farmers has transformed into something far more organized and systematic, as the Ukrainian military have pushed vast quantities of captured Russian armor into frontline service. And since Ukraine retook almost all of Kharkiv district in the last week, there has been a windfall of new vehicles to “MacGyver” and repurpose.
In the aftermath of Ukraine’s successful Kharkiv offensive over the past week, fleets of Russian armored vehicles were left abandoned on the battlefield, left behind by Russian troops as they desperately tried to escape the Ukrainian advance. Footage uploaded to social media by victorious Ukrainian troops showed rows of BMP infantry fighting vehicles, neatly parked in the liberated city of Izium, seemingly in near-perfect condition, while T-80U tanks from Russia’s elite Fourth Guards Tank Regiment were left abandoned at a maintenance station, in various states of repair.
According to the independent monitor Oryx, which uses publicly available footage to visually confirm Russian and Ukrainian equipment losses, the Ukrainians have captured a minimum of 1,841 pieces of heavy Russian military equipment since the start of the war, including 356 tanks, 606 armored fighting vehicles, and 363 trucks and jeeps. As Oryx only includes equipment that has been visually confirmed as captured, the true total is probably much higher.
“During the early days of the war, a lot of Russian vehicles totally ran out of gas and were abandoned in perfect condition,” said Yuri Matsarsky, a soldier in Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces (TDF), the nation’s military reserve. “That’s happening less in the last few months. But after Kharkiv, it’s picked up again.”
The Ukrainians have been repainting these captured vehicles in their now-familiar digital camouflage. They’ve also been upgrading and improving them. Captured “Tornado-U” trucks were given an extra Browning M2 heavy machine gun mounted on the cab, while a BTR-82A armored personnel carrier was upgraded with extra armor, a thermal-imaging sight, and Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet platform.
“Many of the vehicles we captured have been MT-LBs,” Pavlo Kazarin, another soldier in the TDF and a well-known journalist before the war, told Yahoo News, referring to the versatile Russian armored vehicle often used as an armored personnel carrier or an artillery tractor. “At least one of these has been upgraded with added weapons, such as a ZSU-2 23 anti-aircraft autocannon.”
In fact, one TDF brigade has an entire garageful of repurposed Russian armored vehicles, owing to what Matsarsky described as “special tactics” to immobilize Russian vehicles and force their crews to abandon them. “One group of TDF fighters used a light mortar to shell a Russian BTR armored personnel carrier that took a regular patrol route, intentionally bursting the vehicle’s tires and forcing the crew to leave it behind.”
“Many Russian vehicles that are left behind are not that badly damaged,” Matsarsky said. “The Russians simply lack the motivation or the discipline to repair them.” Despite Russia’s inability to match the latest Western advances in drone technology or precision-guided weapons, building rugged heavy trucks is always something it has historically done well.
And because so many Ukrainians were pressed into military service as a result of the war, they initially had to rely on civilian cars for transportation. Generally, these had limited off-road capability and no armor, making them highly vulnerable to Russian attack. One of Matsarsky’s commanders went through three vehicles in a single month due to shelling.
Thanks to what the Ukrainians have nicknamed “Russian Lend Lease,” more and more of Kyiv’s soldiers now drive around with bullet- and artillery-proof plating. That not only translates into fewer casualties but also into greater operational sustainability on the battlefield. Matsarsky joked that it’s often easier to simply steal a Russian armored vehicle for TDF’s use than to barter or argue with other units in the Ukrainian Army for an official deployment.
The “Tornado-U,” for instance, is one of Russia’s latest heavy military trucks, and the models the Ukrainians have captured feature an armored cab, a 440-horsepower engine and a 6×6 chassis. The Tornado-U can also easily drive off road and haul a range of towed weapons, such as howitzers or anti-tank guns.
Ukrainians have also been snagging other types of Russian kit. One BM-21 “Grad” Multiple Launch Rocket System was found beyond effective repair, and so the Ukrainians salvaged the rocket-launcher tubes and mounted them on the backs of pickup trucks. While it is old technology (Grad rockets are not too dissimilar to the “Katyusha” rockets the Soviet Army used in World War II), ammunition for such systems is still relatively plentiful, and the rockets remain deadly.
Ukrainian soldiers insist, however, that refurbished Russian materiel is no substitute for continued support from their Western partners.
Russian guns and tanks show a lot of wear and tear. The barrels are worn out and the age of the equipment is extremely dated, 30 or 40 years old, and sometimes even older than that.
“Imagine what miracles we could perform with a brand-new Abrams tank,” Matsarsky said.
Volodymyr Zhukovskyy found not guilty of killing 7 motorcyclists
A commercial truck driver who took drugs on the same day he was part of a grisly New Hampshire crash that killed seven motorcyclists was acquitted Tuesday on all charges.
Driver Volodymyr Zhukovskyy told police at the time he caused the accident, but jurors in less than three hours found him not guilty of seven counts each of manslaughter and negligent homicide, as well as one count of reckless conduct.
Zhukovskyy, 26, had been in jail since the June 21, 2019 crash where he continuously swerved back and forth leading up to the head-on collision.
The Massachusetts resident cried as the verdict was read and pointed toward the sky as he left the Coos County courtroom.
“Our hearts go out to the victims and their families. Our trial team did an excellent job and we firmly believe that the State proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt,” New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella said in a statement.
The father of one of the victims was stunned by the verdict.
“Killing seven people and he gets off. That is unbelievable,” said Albert Mazza whose son Albert “Woody” Mazza Jr. died in the crash.
“It doesn’t make much sense,” the heart-stricken dad added. “There are seven people dead. There are seven families affected. It’s strange that he didn’t get something.”
But the defense team actually pointed the finger at Mazza Jr., saying he was drunk at the time of the crash. Lawyers for Zhukovskyy also argued Mazza wasn’t looking when he lost control of his motorcycle and slid in front of the truck.
The judge previously tossed eight charges connected to whether Zhukovskyy was impaired at the time of the crash.
The family of Zhukonskyy, who was born in Ukraine, was grateful for the “honest and fair trial.”
“Our family expresses its deepest condolences to the family and friends affected by this tragedy,” they said, adding he was “very honest and kind man. He would never have done anything to hurt anyone.”
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued an immigration detainer on Zhukovskyy following the crash, which was executed after the verdict, said Coos County Corrections Department official.
He was served papers to appear before an immigration judge and will remain in ICE custody before the hearing, ICE said.
Zhukovskyy’s commercial driving license was supposed to be revoked in Massachusetts when the crash occurred because of a drunken driving arrest in Connecticut two months beforehand.
But it wasn’t suspended due to a backlog of cases.
The killed motorcyclists, part of the Jarheads Motorcycle Club, were from New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Massachusetts and ranged from ages of 42 to 62.
Victims Mazza, couple Edward and Jo-Ann Corr, Michael Ferazzi, Desma Oakes, Daniel Pereira, and Aaron Perry were traveling in a larger group at the time of the crash.
Defense attorney Jay Duguay argued authorities ignored their own accident reconstruction unit that contradicted the assertion that Zhukovskyy crossed into the oncoming lane. He also mentioned inconsistencies from witnesses.
Prosecutor Scott Chase acknowledged the inconsistencies but noted witnesses on the stand were talking about “some of the most unimaginable chaos, trauma, death and carnage that we can even imagine three years later.”
He also argued Zhukovskyy continued to swerve “until he killed people.”
With Post wires
USPS will buy four times more electric mail trucks than first announced
The combined 84,500 trucks — which begin making deliveries in late 2023 — will go a long way toward meeting President Biden’s goal for the entire government fleet to be EV-powered by 2035. The Postal Service’s more than 217,000 vehicles make up the largest share of federal civilian vehicles.
With record heat waves covering broad swaths of the U.S. and Europe, Biden traveled to Massachusetts on Wednesday to issue an ultimatum to lawmakers: Take action on the globe’s worsening climate, or he will. The president appears poised in the coming weeks to weigh declaring a national climate emergency, a move that would grant him sweeping new authorities to tackle rising temperatures.
“The Postal Service reiterates its commitment to the fiscally responsible rollout of electric-powered vehicles for America’s largest and oldest federal fleet,” the agency said in a statement.
Government regulators and environmental activists had rallied to block the Postal Service from purchasing so many gas-powered trucks. Oshkosh’s internal combustion engine model gets 8.6 mpg with the air conditioning running. That’s less than 0.5 mpg of fuel efficiency better than the decades-old trucks they’re poised to replace.
Regulators estimated that 150,000 of the Oshkosh gas-powered trucks would emit roughly the same amount of Earth-warming carbon dioxide each year as 4.3 million passenger vehicles. White House officials said such emissions could pose permanent ecological damage. Sixteen states plus four of the U.S.’s top environmental groups sued to stop the contract in April.
“I think the pressure from environmental justice groups, labor unions, it’s working,” Adrian Martinez, an attorney for Earthjustice, one of the activist groups bringing suit, told The Washington Post. “There’s still some more work that needs to be done, but the initial attitude that we got when we first met is shifting.”
“I am very willing to let them grow and change,” said Porter McConnell, campaign director of the consumer rights group Take on Wall Street and co-founder of the Save the Post Office Coalition.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, long a foil of the Biden administration and congressional Democrats, said in June that he would reorganize certain agency operations to improve efficiency and accommodate more EVs.
The Postal Service is the process of centralizing mail delivery routes into major processing plants, dramatically reducing, experts say, the costs associated with electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
Congress in March also passed a $107 billion agency overhaul, freeing up money that postal leaders had long sought for capital improvements. Lawmakers from both parties specifically pointed to the agency’s need for new trucks — its fleet now is 30 years-old, and has neither air bags nor air conditioning — to keep up with private-sector EV investments in approving the legislation.
“The one thing that has changed is their fiscal condition is much improved,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), the lead sponsor of legislation for electric postal fleet funding, said in an interview. “To be charitable, that could be some part of the explanation. But the truth is, you don’t need billions of dollars from Congress to do the smart thing.”
“Electric vehicles are the future of the automotive industry and that is why I have been pressing the Postal Service to purchase more of them as they continue to add more Next Generation Delivery Vehicles and other vehicles to their fleet,” said Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who chairs the Senate committee charged with handling postal issues.
But agency leaders and even some of DeJoy’s advisers have for months pushed the postal chief to move the agency away from the Oshkosh deal. The contract required a minimum purchase of 50,000 vehicles, after which the agency could open a new round of bidding for trucks — or seek a better bargain with Oshkosh — at a time when experts predict the price of electric vehicles and their expensive batteries will have dropped.
That appears to be what DeJoy decided, two of those people told The Post. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss agency strategy.
Oshkosh’s stock was flat after the announcement, up less than 1 percent in midday trading.
“The Postal Service anticipates evaluating and procuring vehicles over shorter time periods to be more responsive to its evolving operational strategy, technology improvements, and changing market conditions, including the expected increased availability of BEV options in the future,” the agency said in a statement announcing the new purchasing plan.
The Oshkosh contract, struck in February 2021, was widely criticized from the start. The defense contractor had never made electric vehicles and told investors that the EV market represented a weak point in its capabilities. Peters wrote to DeJoy within days of the announced agreement that the contract “leaves many questions unanswered about the Postal Service’s commitment to a sustainable fleet.”
The House Oversight and Reform Committee in May opened an investigation into the deal after Chair Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) said the agency “needs to go back to the drawing board” on the purchase plan that was projected to cost $11.3 billion.
“Our Postal Service fleet of the future must be clean, affordable, and electric,” Maloney said in a statement Wednesday. “This is the fleet that the American people deserve. I am pleased by this progress, but I will continue to fight for the Postal Service fleet to fully transition to electric vehicles.”
“Investing in an outdated technology never made sense, and I am glad the Postmaster General is belatedly coming to that common-sense realization,” added Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), who chairs the subcommittee in charge of postal policy. “We still have more work to do, and Congress will continue to help push the USPS to a modern, green fleet.”
4 dead in Texas crash involving alleged smuggling operation
Suspected human smugglers reportedly led authorities on a high-speed chase that ended with a fatal crash Thursday in the same Texas city where the infamous migrant death truck passed through an immigration checkpoint earlier in the week.
A vehicle believed to be carrying migrants was being chased by Border Patrol agents when it veered out of control and slammed into the back of a tractor-trailer in Encinal, TV station KHOU 11 reported.
Four people were killed and three were injured in the collision near the Love’s truck stop on Route 44, Encinal police said.
Encinal cops who responded to a Border Patrol request for assistance saw the “suspect vehicle” race off I-35 and smash into the tractor-trailer, which wasn’t moving, Police Chief Pablo Balboa III said in a prepared statement.
A photo posted online by KHOU appeared to show a mangled white Jeep amid the wreckage.
The speeding driver was among those killed and the injured were flown by helicopter to local hospitals, police said.
On Monday, a truck carrying 64 migrants in its sweltering trailer passed through the Border Patrol checkpoint in Encinal, with a surveillance camera allegedly catching Homero Zamorano, 45, grinning as he leaned out of the driver’s window.
That truck was later abandoned in a remote area of San Antonio, with authorities finding “stacks of bodies” inside and a total of 48 dead.
The death toll now stands at 53 of the 64 migrants who were packed into the trailer, and Zamorano — who was reportedly “very high on meth” when nabbed nearby — faces a federal human smuggling charge that could result in the death penalty.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has repeatedly blamed the horrific incident on President Biden, saying Wednesday that the trailer wasn’t inspected in Encinal “because the Border Patrol does not have the resources to inspect all the trucks and as a result, the Border Patrol did not have the capability of saving those lives.”
Abbott also said he would “immediately” set up new, state-run checkpoints to inspect trucks for migrant-smuggling operations and deploy two “strike teams” to scour the highways for trucks carrying migrants and search out smugglers’ “stash houses.”