> People think this kind of logic is an example of thinking, but it's actually thought suppression.
You think the kind of logic you expressed is an example of thinking, but it is literally thought suppression, because you are using it to try to get someone to stop thinking about a certain thing (following the money) and not giving them anything else to think about.
"follow the money" would actually give you the opposite conclusion.
It's not free to switch to electric. Infrastructure costs like building charging stations and maintenance, labor costs like retraining drivers, and a huge number of other costs must be modeled before understanding the true economics.
Merely saying "someone is probably pocketing" demonstrates a shallow analysis of the situation.
Explain this comment to me. It seems reasonable to come to the conclusion that someone is profiting on the side from this deal. Especially given the current postmaster general. Is there some other trail of thought you think is being neglected from jumping to this conclusion?
Yes, any deal would involve someone making a profit but that isn't important. The question "follow the money" implies is, was this decision made because it was the best decision for the circumstances or was it made because someone is getting a kickback? I don't know the answer and I'm not implying anything but I feel saying "any deals involves someone making money" is being obtuse to a certain extent.
Would you expand on why you believe this to be true?
I don't think it's wise to focus only on money without considering other factors; however, when looking at decisions like this that don't make sense on the surface, especially when political factors are in play, money is very often going to be a driving factor.
Part of the problem is that people say “I’m telling you someone’s making a buck, just follow the money”, then they don’t actually follow the money. For many people, it’s enough to just say that catchphrase and not even bother looking into it. The argument wins itself.
Another part of the problem is that when I do see people follow the money, they often come up with something like “the deputy undersecretary of the USPS’s brother used to work for Ford (as a mechanic at a dealership when they were in college)!” And then they treat that fact as if it overrules all the complicated forces that go into this kind of organizational decision-making.
So no, following the money is not a bad idea on paper. But in practice it’s often very sloppy, to the point that it’s frequently annoying when trying to have meaningful debate about policy issues.
To clarify my parent comment, I'm not advocating for blindly resorting to "follow the money", and I acknowledged that. But your response is actually substantive and delves into some of the pitfalls of this kind of thinking, which was missing from the GP, and really what I was asking for.
If you have a surface level understanding of a problem and don't understand the proposed solution, then the best path forward is to dig a little deeper and understand the problem better, or just move on with your life and accept that you can't know everything about every field.
Deciding that your surface level understanding of the problem coupled with some general concepts (ie money is often a driving factor), is enough to make a confident pronouncement on the issue is exactly self-inflicted thought suppression.
I was not suggesting one use "follow the money" as a default. I was reacting to the parent comment that dismissed the idea entirely without explaining why.
> when looking at decisions like this that don't make sense on the surface
The USPS is ordering a fleet of trucks to operate in all of the United States of America from the Arctic Circle to Hawaii and the Florida Keys. They can’t just order EVs, they have to order the infrastructure to charge them and they need mechanics that can service them, and the trucks have to be able to operate anywhere the USPS deploys them.
Maybe that’s an argument for a mixed fleet, and there’s certainly room for criticism in any large government expenditure and of USPS itself, but it does not on the surface make no sense given that we still depend on USPS to deliver Mail to a service area that per Congressional mandate includes every address in America. Personally I think a mid-generation partial upgrade of the fleet to EVs would give USPS time to work out kinks, charging infrastructure and mechanic concerns without sacrificing the reliability of their service ahead of the generation after this one is probably the way to go.
These are all great points, and certainly highlight some of the challenges in rolling out EVs. But at a time when the climate crisis is as severe as it is today, "it's too hard" can't be an excuse. I'd still argue that this decision doesn't make sense in the context of the global problems we face today, even if they make some sort of tactical sense in the short term.
The rollout doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing thing, and the article acknowledges that some EV's will be purchased.
Humorously enough, the primary reason cited by the USPS for the decision: $$$ (I realize that's not what the GP was implying)
It’s not an excuse: it’s a practical reason to not do a thing given finite resources. Somebody has to design the trucks, somebody has to manufacture them, someone has to service them, and somebody has to build the stuff that will charge them in a place the USPS can guarantee the availability of space for and security for their trucks, which practically means USPS or at least USPS adjacent property.
The climate is changing is not a legitimate reason to over-spend, or worse: over-spend, over-promise and under-deliver. Anything they build today is bound to be safer and pollute less than their current fleet, so why hold up replacing the fleet when what they need from an EV practically doesn’t exist outside of exactly Tesla’s supercharge network?
> Somebody has to design the trucks, somebody has to manufacture them, someone has to service them, and somebody has to build the stuff that will charge them in a place the USPS can guarantee the availability of space for and security for their trucks
Are these the reasons cited by the USPS?
As the article pointed out, a key ask was to focus on specific routes that are more suitable to EVs than others.
Every argument you’ve listed will always be a factor when moving to fundamentally new tech. They’re legitimate challenges, yes. But considerations the private sector is already sorting out.
Again, “it’s too hard” shouldn’t equate to “we aren’t even going to try (or even start piloting EVs to start making progress)”. This was unnecessarily forced to be an all-or-nothing rollout, which clearly doesn’t make sense in every region.
As far as overspending goes, there are some great threads elsewhere on this post that present some very reasonable phased approaches that address that.
> This was unnecessarily forced to be an all-or-nothing rollout, which clearly doesn’t make sense in every region.
I already preemptively addressed this, so you know I agree with you to an extent.
> Are these the reasons cited by the USPS?
You don't need to defer to USPS: a passing familiarity with EVs, the USPS's operations, mandates and the varied temperature extremes and climates they operate within (few countries are both as large as the US and have as varied a climate) will suffice. EVs presently handle extreme temperatures worse than ICE vehicles, and last I checked, most of the States have pretty cold winters and several have deserts. The bulk of their fleet will have to operate in most places all the time.
That said they do use different vehicles where it makes sense for them to, and per the article are also rolling out 5K EV vans. That's enough to start working with figuring out what they would need to eventually electrify the fleet while proceeding with regular business.
The actual reasons cited by USPS are also fairly practical: they have a contract in place, they don't need to stall it to give the President a win considering the age of their existing fleet is a more immediate concern, and the EPA has no say in the matter, but will consider purchasing more EVs if Congress provides additional funding for the purpose.
> Every argument you’ve listed will always be a factor when moving to fundamentally new tech.
USPS and its predecessor organizations has actually been on the bleeding edge for mail transport in the past, but there is value in taking a small "c" conservative approach to rolling out to new vehicle tech for last mile delivery, particularly when most mass market manufacturers still haven't even figured out both the vehicles and the charging infrastructure and you do need both. If the new purchase order could wait another 10 years, I'd be in wholehearted agreement with you. Maybe it even could, but I'm not seeing anyone making that argument.
Just as a last point, presently USPS burns about 110 million gallons of gasoline a year[1], but Americans burned about 123.73 billion in 2020[2]. The Postal Service is not where you want to have your climate fight for vehicle electrification because the juice just isn't worth the squeeze unless you value the politics more than the money. More than likely if the USPS continues to exist they will probably do a mid-generation transition or the next fleet they purchase will be all-electric because by that point it should be the more practical decision, unless something like Hydrogen fuel cells actually catch up to battery-electric vehicles by that point in terms of feasibility and deployed infrastructure.
You think the kind of logic you expressed is an example of thinking, but it is literally thought suppression, because you are using it to try to get someone to stop thinking about a certain thing (following the money) and not giving them anything else to think about.