A $10 billion contract awarded by the Biden administration for the production of 35,000 electric vehicles (EVs) to replace the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) aging fleet has produced only 250 new vehicles in more than 2 years.
Despite receiving billion of dollars in contracts and government subsidies and building a new plant, Oshkosh Defense has failed to deliver the 3,000 battery electric vehicles it promised to have produced by late 2024.
The failure is prompting calls for the Trump administration to cancel the Biden-era contract and to instead award the money to Morgan Olson, a veteran-owned manufacturer which promises to make a gas-powered, right-hand-drive delivery truck, faster and more affordably than the Oshkosh program can.
🚨WASTEFUL: Biden gave $10B to Oshkosh for new EV USPS trucks—only 250 built in 2+ years.
Vet-owned Morgan Olson can make 100K American-made GAS trucks faster and cheaper, with no woke strings attached.
THE OPTION IS CLEAR! CANCEL THIS BIDEN-ERA CONTRACT AND USE MORGAN OLSON! pic.twitter.com/I8R6H0zBZv
— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) August 15, 2025
The Federal Newswire reports that Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) has described the USPS EV contract with Oshkosh as among the most wasteful federal projects in a report titled “Off The Rails: The Billion Dollar Boondoggles Taking Taxpayers for a Ride.”
When a $2.98 billion contract was first awarded in 2022, Oshkosh had no working prototype or delivery vehicle experience, despite promising to produce 50,000 Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDVs).
Ernst’s report states:
“When the first vehicles were finally delivered, significant fixes were required before they were usable. Despite the delays, USPS agreed to pay higher prices for the vehicles,” the report adds,
“A person involved with the production admits, ‘This is the bottom line: We don’t know how to make a damn truck.’ That’s an important detail that should have been discovered before paying the company billions to do just that!”
Meanwhile, Morgan Olson was able to develop its Kestrel delivery vehicle without federal subsidies and stands ready to start production at its 1-million-square-foot Danville, Virginia facility.
The proposal from Morgan Olson promises to deliver 100,000 vehicles by 2029 at a projected cost of $5.5 billion, utilizing $26 million in startup support to come in well below the estimated cost of the EV initiative.
The rollout of the Kestrel coincides with President Trump’s Executive Order 14154, which changed fleet electrification rules to address cost and practicality by targeting “burdensome and ideologically motivated regulations.”
According to the Federal Newswire, the USPS has begun field testing 5 Kestrel units and is considering a formal launch event for early 2026.
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