President Biden isn't wasting any time in making his policy clear on electric vehicles. In a speech today, less than one week into his Presidency, Biden announced that he plans to replace all federal vehicles in service with domestically-made EVs.
According to the General Service Administration’s 2019 Federal Fleet Report, that's a total of 645,000 vehicles - and that's a lot of EVs. However, before you get too excited, the President didn't lay out any plans or timeline whatsoever, only a commitment to transition the fleet to zero-emission electric vehicles.
Together, this will be the largest mobilization of public investment and procurement infrastructure and R&D since World War II. - President Biden
Biden also added that all of the electric vehicles would be domestically made and that it would be the largest mobilization of public investment and procurement infrastructure since World War Two. That's interesting because it would certainly narrow down the choices that the various departments have when ordering replacement vehicles.
Tesla Model 3s have already proven to make great Police cruisers for some departments that were willing to give the vehicle a chance. It appears to be paying off and the Bargersville Police department in Indiana announced that the Model 3 saved them $6,750 in only one year of service, as compared to a Dodge Charger cruiser. We can only imagine how much the government would save by replacing more than half a million vehicles with efficient EVs.
Nearly 22% of the vehicles in the federal fleet are mail trucks, which are long overdue for replacement. The average age of a Grumman mail delivery truck is 28 years old and they lack basic essential functions of modern vehicles including airbags, anti-lock brakes, and air conditioning.
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Mail delivery vehicles are perfect candidates for electric vehicles because they have set routes, do a lot of stop-and-go low-speed driving, and in many instances don't need to cover many miles to complete their daily route. The 140,000 federal mail trucks currently in service should be the first fleet to be converted.
If we take Biden's announcement literally, then we have to assume he means he'll be ordering a new all-electric Presidential limo, affectionately known as "The Beast". Perhaps it will be a custom stretched Hummer EV-based Cadillac SUV? One thing we know for sure though, and that's he won't be calling on Elon Musk to make the bulletproof glass.
Source: Electrek
