President Biden backed up an earlier campaign promise on Monday, pledging to replace vehicles owned by the federal government with U.S.-made electric vehicles. 

“The federal government also owns an enormous fleet of vehicles which we're going to replace with clean, electric vehicles made right here in America by American workers,” he said while discussing his Buy American executive order  aimed at increasing federal purchases of products made in the U.S.  The executive order establishes a National Climate Task Force, charged with, among other things,using "all available procurement authorities to achieve or facilitate ... (procuring) clean and zero-emission vehicles for Federal, State, local, and Tribal government fleets, including vehicles of the United States Postal Service." and said that the government should get products from “sources that will help American businesses compete”   No timeline was set for completion of the fleet makeover or whether the total number of vehicles would be reduced from current levels. As of 2019, the federal government  has about 645,000 vehicles in its inventory. Of those, just over 3,200 are electric vehicles, according to the General Services Administration.

 

Specialty vehicles, like those used by the Postal Service, may need to be adapted from existing electric vehicle offerings, such as the 2022 Ford E-Transit and GM's recently-announced Brightdrop EV600 electric delivery van, or may require development of entirely new platforms to meet these specific vehicle requirements. The Postal Service fleet now includes about 140,000 Grumman LLV delivery vehicles, a specialty vehicle built on a 1980's Chevrolet S-10 Blazer chassis. The last LLVs were delivered in 1994. Ordinary sedans and SUVs used for government administrative transportation could easily be replaced with American-made vehicles such as the affordable Chevrolet Bolt, but luxury EV makers like Tesla and Lucid may have to produce de-contented versions of  existing models or develop base fleet models to compete for this business.