Reminds me of a baseball cap.

 

A lot of carriers think it's ugly and have already passed judgement sight unseen. My son in law who also carries got some seat time in the prototype that will be built and stated that there are sop few blind spots as compared to the LLV. Additionally, he liked the seat positions, the sensors, the cameras, the factory installed shelving and the roof height.

I've always been impressed with the futuristic design, safety and comfort that this unit will bring plus, we probably won't have to choke on gas fumes from a 40 year old vehicle.

I'm assuming the 2.0L will be an ecoboost, the current Mercedes Metris vans are 2.0L turbo and seem to be holding up fine, they're just hard to work out of.

 

I don't think this so far is a viable option past South Carolina, heading north due to the cold winters. All the PO's don't have a garage to house them over night.

But I do think that this type of work would be perfect for an electric van of some kind.

 

Definitely has good visibility which is probably important when driving around neighborhoods with pedestrians

 

I think it would be okay in most parts of the country, but it may struggle up here in Minnesota. I believe the e-Transit uses an inefficient resistive heater like my Lightning does, and my truck will burn between 5-6 kW to keep the cabin warm at 0º. A truck cab doesn't have much insulation, and it takes a ton of power to warm a space 70º above the outside temperature.

The e-Transit only has a 67 kWh battery, which is half the size of the Lightning's ER battery. 5 kW * 10 hours leaves precious little for driving around, even in a smaller town like mine. This heating load goes down significantly as the outside temperature climbs and heat pumps are more than twice as efficient. I can see the e-Transit working fine in low-mileage routes in most areas that don't get this cold, which is most of the country.

 

Considering the company building the new delivery vehicles also makes war vehicles to be used in any climate at any given moment. I'd like to think they have some brains on staff to design the system to be as efficient as possible. Including the climate control system.

Wishful thinking perhaps. But yeah.

 

You’re more optimistic than I am. In my experience, military vehicles are the most unreliable things on four wheels. They’re built for extreme conditions and outstanding when they work, though. I’d hope Oshkosh can get them right, and I have more faith in Ford’s off-the-shelf powertrains.

 

I drove some oshosh stuff in military flavor for many years and they did well if used on a regular basis.

I was driving HEMETT's which were 10 ton 8x8 with detriots and allison transmissions. could load 10K on it and then pull a trailer with another 10K on it. I would run that tihing on the autobahn all the time.
Wide open of course

 

Screaming at redline at 55 MPH. 🐢

I always wanted to drive a HEMTT. My time in recruiting taught me all of the awesome jobs I should have picked.

 

I could run a little faster as the governor seemed to have been tampered with.

 

The Transit van was actually one of the finalists for the new delivery vehicle. The vehicle was to be modified to look more like the front of the van with a box on the back. But again, the Transit sits too high for most curbline mail boxes and with the swinging doors like the Metris, it's pure chaotic to work from which is why the LLV still is the fan favorite even without safety equipment and ac.

Oshkosh was smart enough to recognize this out the gate and come up with a purpose built vehicle that could be adapted to battery electric or petroleum use and use Ford's off the shelf components. This will be over $6 billion in Oshkosh's pocket by the time it's complete.

 

The era of the iron duke was interesting, as one of the few motors I can remember in the last 40 years or so that was made in house by one of the major domestic car makers and then shared by another one outside of ones like the 4.0L AMC that was used by another maker through acquisition. There is case to be made that with internal combustion engines getting so complicated to meet emissions standards, that companies start to pool resources and work on one motor for each class and refine it, instead of everyone making their own motor that needs constant updating to meet new restrictions.

 

My wife had a '91 Pontiac Grand Am with the Iron Duke that was purchased new and it was my opinion that engine suffered from good engineering.

 

anytime it was paired to a slush box it was going to be a car best driven by retirees. With a manual behind it, it was tolerable.

I often wonder how it will do with a modern 8-10 speed transmission.

 

It would lug down and be useless. The LLV's are geared incredibly low and they need to be in order to get going. These tough little engines wind up pretty tight and it's partially because of the four speed that's behind them. The LLV is a Chevy S10 with a bread box on the chassis. It replaced to old Postal Jeeps and was a welcome new addition for it's time which was long before my time.

My first LLV that I drove for 8.5 years on my first route ended up with a new engine due to blown head gasket, transmission replacement, entire exhaust replacement, all shocks replaced, two brake jobs, two master cylinders, 3 batteries, an alternator, 2 starters and a driver's seat and it was rarely driven more than 20 miles per day. Normal miles per day was 10. Whe3n you see your letter carrier, know that their vehicle is being subjected to severe duty at all times and that they don't get the maintenance that they require. The PO will let a component fail and strand a carrier and mail instead of performing preventative maintenance.

I drive a two ton each day which is an E450 camper chassis with Ford's V10. It's the same truck as the UPS trucks but it has ac. The last two weeks it's been cold and it would drag pretty bad at each start up. I told the maintenance people but they let it it die on the route. I had to wait 45 minutes for a replacement vehicle and the tow was done via a rollback truck at the cost of $200 plus the battery and a tow back to the station.

I tell you all that to say this, the electric vehicles are a good thing for the route carriers but if and when they start to need service, I have zero, zilch, nada faith that the PO will do it correctly or timely. I fully expect to see a lot of laid up electric trucks waiting for parts or someone smart enough to work on them.

Ultimately, it's not real important as I'll be gone in 22 months and counting.