Listen: New Postal Trucks Meet Govt Standard by a Single Pound

Published: Feb. 14, 2022, 1 p.m.

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Early last year, Wisconsin defense contractor Oshkosh Defense secured a multi-billion dollar contract to build the next generation of mail trucks for the U.S. Postal Service.

The program aims to begin replacing the Post Office\\u2019s crumbling, 30-year-old vehicle fleet beginning next year, but the Oshkosh effort has come under fire for everything from a relative lack of electrified mail trucks to the bidding process itself.

Now, a new report suggests that the new gas-powered trucks needed some strings to be pulled in order to be considered street-legal at all.

According to a report in Vice, an Environmental Protection Agency review of the process noted that the gas trucks would come in at a total vehicle weight of 8,501 pounds \\u2014 a figure that combines the truck weight of 5,560 pounds with its estimated payload of 2,941 pounds.

If that seems like an oddly specific cargo weight to you, you\\u2019re not alone.

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