New mail trucks to be equipped with 8-track tape players, rotary dial phones and manual hand-crank windows
Across the U.S., more and more companies are transitioning their fleets to modern electric vehicles. Bucking that trend, the United States Postal Service has chosen to double down on more traditional technology with 80% of its vast purchase of 160,000 new delivery vehicles to be gasoline-fueled. These internal combustion engines will remain on American roads into the 2040s, at a time when most Americans will have long since switched to clean EVs.
In keeping with their embrace of gasoline technology, they have announced that all new delivery vehicles will be outfitted with 8-track tape players playing a never-ending loop of their ode to oil and gasoline, “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley. At each stop, drivers can use their manual hand-crank windows to roll down their windows and deliver the mail. They can also keep in touch with USPS stations through durable rotary dial telephones, to be installed in the new vehicles.
USPS has also announced that they are taking their love of outdated technology even further, by urging Netflix to do away with its new-fangled streaming and returning to its roots, by mailing DVDs to customers. Reportedly, they are also exploring how they can impose postage costs on email.
The USPS is particularly excited in its massive purchase of gasoline vehicles as they will also include a dummy charging outlet so that mail carriers can pretend that they are plugging into the thousands of new charging stations that the federal government is investing $7.5 billion in over the next 5 years.
Said a USPS spokesperson: “The USPS is proud to pretend to participate in, rather than to actually participate in, the new electric vehicle infrastructure this nation is boldly moving forward on. Why purchase an efficient electric fleet that can use this new infrastructure when we can play make-believe with our vehicles (and the taxpayer dollar) instead?”
This may be an April Fool’s joke, but what isn’t a joke is the long-term impact USPS’s absurd decision to purchase gasoline-fueled vehicles will have on air quality in our communities and on the economy of the United States. If you believe that the time is now for the USPS to transition to clean EVs, contact the USPS and Congress today!
Image: “JEEP DJ-5 Dispatcher” by Hugo-90 is marked with CC BY 2.0.
