Here is one of the new delivery vehicles the Albany Post Office is now using. It was parked behind the post office fence on Nov. 26, 2025.
You have probably seen the new vehicles the Albany Post Office has started using to deliver the mail. I grabbed a couple of photos the first chance I got this week.
Albany received 12 of these vehicles, one of the drivers told me on Wednesday, and expects to get 15 or 16 more.
I went online for more information on this change in the Postal Service. Turns out that these rigs have a name: “Next Generation Delivery Vehicle” or NGDV. But you can call one a mail truck if you want.
The new trucks replace the boxy old “Grumman Long Life Vehicle” or LLV, which has been in use since 1987. The LLV had an aluminum body built by Grumman on a chassis built by General Motors and based on the Chevy S-10.
The old Grumman LLV is now being replaced by the new rigs. The Postal Service announced in 2021 that it was awarding a $6 billion contract to Oshkosh Defense, a builder of military vehicles. Oshkosh is based in Wisconsin, but the new postal vehicles are being built in Spartanburg, S.C.
The company says this on its website:
“Oshkosh Defense was awarded an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract in February 2021 to produce a fleet of Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDV) for the U.S. Postal Service. The contract includes both zero emission battery electric vehicles (BEV) and fuel-efficient low-emission internal combustion engine vehicles (ICE), giving the USPS its first major fleet upgrade in three decades. The competitively awarded contract allows for delivery of between 50,000 and 165,000 over a period of ten years. The first order was placed in March 2022 for 50,000 NGDVs.”
For more details about the vehicles, you can go to the internet. Dozens of stories and videos are available there.
I don’t yet have particulars about the local fleet of NGDVs. For instance, are any of them battery-powered, or does that have to wait until enough chargers are installed at the post office, where the trucks are parked overnight?
With air conditioning and enough head room for tall drivers to stand up inside, plus cameras and other safety features, the vehicles are intended to be more comfortable for postal employees.
How comfortable? I’ll try to get a personal assessment when the mail deliverer on my route has been driving one of these new rigs for a few weeks. (hh)
Be warned: Don’t try to step on the front bumper of the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle.
A duck bill front and a tall windshield are two of the vehicle’s distinctive features.
That’s an awful lot of glass. Wouldn’t want to clean it. LOL!
Looks like good forward visibility – driver can readily spot would be stowaways trying to slip onto the bumper.
My one complaint is: I was left a note in my mail box that my mail delivery was being halted because I had a tree with limbs too low for their new taller delivery trucks. The tree had been here over 30-40 years. I’ve lived at my house 17 years. I did trim a bunch of limbs but I wasn’t pleased. Progress I guess.
I believe there is supposed to be something like 14’ clearance on roads and 8’ on sidewalks.
Check Albany Municipal Code 7.98.130. It explains who is responsible for tree trimming over sidewalks
I’m glad for the A/C. I always felt bad for my postal worker in the summer, and got concerned when drivers were falling ill.
Ugly delivers
I also had to have some tree limbs removed and almost everyone has mailboxes on my side of the street where trees are. Friend who is tree trimmer did it for me and was very appreciated. Hope the vehicles work out okay and are cheaper to operate.
Thanks for the research, Hasso.
One more thing I’d be interested in is how much these vehicles would save on maintenance costs, fuel and longer replacement intervals, and how that compares to their initial cost.
I’m glad to see that “defense” contactors are being used to provide jobs manufacturing something more useful than weapons used to control the global economy. Perhaps if we weren’t wasting well over a trillion dollars on these imperial pursuits, we might be able to compete with China.
If you doubt that his why we are in a constant state of war since 2001, ask yourself where all these enemies have come from, and how they constitute a threat to the greatest military power in history, with over 800 bases worldwide. Whatever happened to the nearly universal belief that we shouldn’t be the world’s (crooked) police, or the idea that wars should have an “exit strategy?”
Those worried about trimming trees, be grateful you still have mail delivered to your curb. The USPS is trying to get rid of home deliveries and requires consolidated boxes instead on new construction. They are called CBUs or Cluster Box Units. I do not believe any new construction can utilize individual mailboxes, but on older properties they are grandfathered in, for now. https://www.mailboxesandsigns.com/blog/2025/june/usps-mailbox-requirements-explained-what-property-developers-need-to-know/
Only half of us that live in neighborhoods with curb delivery have it at “OUR” curb. The other half walk across to street to someone else’s curb. One adjacent neighbor has delivery to their door. I don’t.
I was intrigued when I first saw them. I immediately thought “electric”. Our mail person took the time to explain the pros and cons (none) of them. Said most of the electric ones went to Multnomah county. He is excited about the a/c and easier assesability of getting large packages inside.