U.S. Postal Service to Purchase Six Canoe Electric Delivery Vans

Canoo announced Thursday that it will sell six electric delivery vans to the U.S. Postal Service.

The vans, which will be delivered to the Postal Service later this quarter, will be right-hand drive versions of the Canoo LDV 190 model; the LDV 190 has a 79 kwh battery pack and an estimated range of 200 miles, according to a press release from the startup. It also has 200 horsepower, 172 cubic feet of cargo space, and a payload capacity of 1,624 pounds, according to Canoo's website.

The Postal Service is undertaking a $40 billion effort to electrify its fleet: in addition to 21,000 EVs based on existing designs, including 9,250 Ford E-Transit vans, at least 45,000 electric versions of its custom-designed Next Generation Delivery Vehicle (NGDV) The company plans to.

The NGDVs are intended to replace the aptly named Grumman Long Life Vehicle (LLV) postal trucks that have been in operation for decades and can also be built with internal combustion powertrains. The Postal Service has pledged to purchase more electric vehicles in response to widespread criticism of its original plan to make only 10% of its fleet electric, but the first EVs are not expected to arrive until 2028.

The Postal Service is not the first government agency that Canoo has sold its vehicles to. The startup delivered a prototype pickup truck to the U.S. Army for evaluation in 2022 and built three vans for NASA to transport astronauts to the Kennedy Space Center launch pad.

In the private sector, Canoe recently announced that it has delivered the first of an order of 9,300 vehicles to van rental company Kingbee; in 2022, Wal-Mart announced plans to purchase thousands of Canoe electric vans. Production is taking place in Oklahoma.