Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of the USPS Next-Generation Delivery Vehicle Fleet

Abstract

The United States Postal Service (USPS) plans to purchase 165,000 next-generation delivery vehicles (NGDVs) between 2023 and 2032. The USPS submitted an environmental impact statement (EIS) for two NGDV procurement scenarios: (1) 90% internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) and 10% battery electric vehicles (BEVs) (“ICEV scenario”) and (2) 100% BEVs (“BEV scenario”). To correct several significant deficiencies in the EIS, we conduct a cradle-to-grave life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) assessment of these two scenarios. Our analysis improves upon the USPS’s EIS by including vehicle production and end-of-life emissions, future grid decarbonization, and more accurate vehicle operating emissions. In our base case, we find that the ICEV and BEV scenarios would result in 15% greater and 8% fewer GHG emissions, respectively, than the USPS estimate. Favorable vehicle and grid development would result in 63% lower BEV scenario emissions than the USPS estimate. Consequently, we calculate a cumulative lifetime emission reduction of 57–82% (14.7–21.4 Mt CO2e) from procuring 100% BEVs instead of 10% BEVs, compared to the USPS’s estimate of 10.3 Mt. Given the long NGDV lifetimes, committing to the ICEV scenario squanders an ideal use case for BEVs, jeopardizes meeting our climate goals, and forgoes potential climate and environmental justice co-benefits.

Electric and gasoline vehicle total cost of ownership across US cities

“…While more significant for BEVs, both high and low temperatures will reduce the fuel economy of vehicles of all powertrains (Wu et al, 2019). This temperature dependency has become common in comparative life cycle assessments between vehicles (Archsmith et al, 2015;Burnham et al, 2021b;Gan et al, 2021;Miller et al, 2020;Needell et al, 2016;Woody et al, 2022aWoody et al, , 2022bWu et al, 2019;Yang et al, 2021Yang et al, , 2018Yuksel & Michalek, 2015;Yuksel et al, 2016), but has yet to be included in any TCO studies. Notably, Hao et al (2020) and Scorrano et al (2020) include some temperature effects, though only for BEVs.…”

Optimizing Electric Truck Routing and Charging with Soft Time Windows Using Vehicle-to-Grid Technology

“…Delivery and service time are calculated in the set of constraint (6) when ETs are neither charged nor discharged. Te set of constraints (7) and (8) ensure that ETs can be only either charged or discharged at depot during delivery. If they are either charged or discharged, the corresponding time is calculated by the set of constraints ( 9) and (10).…”

“…Additionally, the United States Post Ofce (USPS) has declared that they intend to replace 40% of newly acquired postal delivery trucks with EVs [5], and they anticipate a further surge in the use of EVs [6]. One of the challenges of using ETs is that their batteries may not provide the same range as diesel trucks [7]. However, advancements in battery technology with respect to charging, capacity, and cost are expected, which will make it economically viable to not rely on gas [8].…”

Cleaning up while Changing Gears: The Role of Battery Design, Fossil Fuel Power Plants, and Vehicle Policy for Reducing Emissions in the Transition to Electric Vehicles

“…Four of the studies in Table use attributional LCA and focus only on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, estimating that GHG emissions attributed to PEVs are lower than those of conventional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs), given assumptions for vehicle use patterns. ,,, While these attributional studies may provide meaningful descriptions of emissions attributed to PEVs under reasonable assignment schemes, they do not estimate how changes in PEV adoption would affect power system emissions. Consequential modeling is necessary to estimate the emission implications of changes in PEV use and/or adoption and to inform policymaking that may affect PEV use and/or adoption…”