And the startup is affiliated with Workhorse. GM just sold its Lordstown plant to an EV startup affiliated with Workhorse - Electrek
Being from central Ohio, I know people who were affected by the Lordstown shutdown. It would be great for NW Ohio and for this company if it could develop a practical EV and was awarded this contract to build the Post Office replacement vehicle. The USPS has walking routes, mounted (vehicle delivered) city routes and rural routes. The average length of a mounted route is 18 miles with some 500 stops being typical. With the exception of some of the long rural routes, the longest being 185 miles and 228 boxes in rural Kansas, EV's would be a great replacement vehicle. The 140,000 LLV (long life vehicle) that we are used to seeing deliver our mail was designed by Grumman for the USPS. They entered service in 1987 with a design life of 24 years. The USPS financial problems has pushed them to bump that out to 30 years. The oldest ones would have reached 30 years of service life in 2017. LLV's had an EPA rating of 17 MPG but due to the constant stop and go of delivery vehicles the USPS average was around 10 MPG. The USPS LLV's consume more than 250,000 gallons of fuel per day. Replacing the majority of LLV's with electric vehicles with regenerative braking should be a no brainer since these vehicles run daily short routes and are parked in lots at night where overnight charging wouldn't be a problem.
Besides EV's being practical (AND CLEANER) for the Post Office, the ice vehicles that they use now? Man, you get trapped behind those things? It's like sucking fumes right out of the gas tank they burn so rich. Every single one is like that. It makes me wonder, if these things are exempt from any smog check every other year - like even PHEV's have to undergo around here. The sale of this plant comes at a particularly suspicious time. Sure, manufacturers are putting the ax to their smaller car offerings (volt, prius c & v), opting for land barges instead, but gm putting a plant out to pasture does not bode well for their plug-in commitments. Seems like it would have been a great place to start up their own battery manufacturing, if they were really committed - rather than rely on foreign sources for there traction packs. God forbid they should NOT be able to complain that they are battery supply constrained. .
From KTLA TV. "GM apparently was able to close three of four factories that it wanted to shutter to get rid of excess capacity in slow-selling cars and components. The Detroit-Hamtramck plant will get a new electric pickup truck and stay open, but factories in Lordstown, Ohio; Warren, Michigan; and near Baltimore are to be closed. The Lordstown area will get an electric vehicle battery factory, but it won’t have nearly as many workers as the assembly plant that for years made compact GM cars."
