New USPS mail trucks

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Well, the design of schools changed a lot over time, from nice looking 2 story buildings to whatever you want to call them now.  I guess you can call me a pick and choose person, but I think you can see an era where looks mattered more than they do now.  

As for regen- you can feel free to look it up, it's the data I have found.  Given the low speeds and torque used, as well as the hard stopping power- it's makes sense to me that the brakes are going to do more than the motor to stop the car.  As far as I'm concerned, it's not a big plus for EV USPS vehicles compared to all of the other benefits for making them EV- which are plenty.

Lower speeds don't seem to work as well for regen.  On diesel electric locomotives, they have dynamic braking down to about 30 mph; below that they blend in friction and usually from ~10 mph down, it's friction only.  But you are right, that at super high speeds the dynamic is current limited, as there's only so much juice you can draw before overloading the system.  

I'm guessing the super tall windshield (above the minimum required height) is there to help drivers see stop lights up close and low branches (since these trucks are significantly taller than the LLVs).

Pretty sure these are being built on Ford Transit frames. The ICEs will be the NA V6, which meets the .gov's requirement of alternative fuel capable, while the EVs will likely just be re-bodied ETransits. Ford just updated the E-Transit with more range and faster charging, and I'm guessing there was some motivation there for these things on top of normal customer demands.

In reply to alfadriver :

Funny you should mention schools, they just built a new high school here in town. It's a good looking campus. The old one was a brick box from the 60s. 

I'm basing my regen comments on my personal experience of driving a car with regen. It can pull itself to a stop. Maybe not a huge amount of power, but something. I know there was a software change that improved it a few years back. 

 I would bet the new one has a top speed of higher than 60mph which was the limit for the LLV

I can confirm with firsthand knowledge that an LLV can travel over 60 mph. 

I personally did it several times on route 18 which is the four lane highway by Pittrace when I was heading back to the Post Office at the end of the day.

STM317 said:

I'm guessing the super tall windshield (above the minimum required height) is there to help drivers see stop lights up close and low branches (since these trucks are significantly taller than the LLVs).

This is the windshield answer.

The windshield is more vertical than the windshield in the transit and the driver sits farther away from it. It needs to be taller so the driver can see traffic signals without having to lean forward. The lower windshield will help with the visibility of objects, dogs, and kids. Since these spend a lot of hours running around neighborhoods, that's an important consideration. With the low dash and hood, road visibility should be phenomenal. It looks like a well designed vehicle to me. 

I thought it was going to be these

I guess they're just for Canada post

Ran accross a prototype today: