Oshkosh Defense, a division of Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Corp., will assemble 50,000 to 165,000 of the new Next Generation Delivery Vehicles at its existing U.S. manufacturing facilities. It will get an initial $482 million toward retooling and building out its factory.
USPS described the deal as the first part of a multibillion-dollar 10-year effort to replace its delivery vehicle fleet.
The choice of Wisconsin-based Oshkosh is a big miss for Ohio-based electric vehicle startup Workhorse Group, which put in an all-electric bid for the vehicles. Shares of Workhorse fell more than 47% Tuesday.
Postal Service bypasses Ohio’s Lordstown Motors
LORDSTOWN, OHIO — Hopes were dashed here Tuesday when the U.S. Postal Service announced its multi-billion contract to build new postal vehicles was not going to the new Lordstown Motors Corp., but rather to a Wisconsin-based manufacturer.
Lordstown Motors’ local factory would have been the likely site for manufacture of the U.S. Postal Service vehicles if the the company’s Cincinnati-based affiliate, Workhorse, had landed the deal.
The company will build an electric pickup at the Lordstown plant.
A prototype of a Lordstown Endurance electric pickup truck caught fire during a road test in Michigan earlier this month, according to WFMJ.
Three years ago FORMER President Trump infamously told the Lordstown GM workers
“don’t move. Don’t sell your house.”
The plant closed anyway. It’s hoped that between manufacturing the Endurance pickup and manufacturing batteries that a fraction of the lost employment from the closed Lordstown GM plant will be regained.
At it’s height the Lordstown GM plant employed over 13 thousand.
