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Comment by marcinzm | Hacker News Reader

The same reason Amazon runs its own shipping network instead of relying on UPS or Fedex. At a certain scale it is cheaper to get a custom option that specifically fits your needs rather than retro-fitting something else. The USPS bought 100,000 of the last truck and, for example, one of the requirements was long service life. Building a truck you can use for 30 years is probably much cheaper than buying multiple lower service life trucks over that period.

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> The same reason Amazon runs its own shipping network instead of relying on UPS or Fedex.

Amazon use off-the-shelf vehicles though.

> one of the requirements was long service life

I wonder how they require that. Does the manufacturer have to warranty them all for 30 years? That's extraordinary!

That's rapidly changing.

https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/transportation/amazons-cust...

"Just one year after announcing the purchase of 100,000 custom electric delivery vehicles as part of The Climate Pledge, Amazon has begun testing the new vans on delivery routes."

AWS also used "off-the-shelf" CPUs for a long time. That's changing as well. The USPS definitely has the scale and need for customization.

Not really, CPU is still "of-the-shelf". SoC is custom. That's just because you can't buy Neoverse and drop it into the motherboard, so making a custom SoC is the only way to obtain it.

Donut has a good video about LLV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE5FGyq12ds

> I wonder how they require that. Does the manufacturer have to warranty them all for 30 years? That's extraordinary!

In 1986, they road-tested the contract competitors' trucks for 24,000 miles, and the Grumman LLV (the truck that this new vehicle replaces) was the only one running at the end. Definitely not proof that they'd run for the intended 24 year lifespan, but I guess the USPS got lucky with the LLV (they even stretched it 6 years past the original retirement date!).

https://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/09/business/postal-contract-...

Amazon, UPS, and FedEx all have custom vehicles. Amazon started with off the shelf vehicles, but once you get to ordering 50,000 of something, you may as well make the design fit your needs instead of only meeting them.

>Amazon use off-the-shelf vehicles though.

Not for long, they even invested in Rivian, an EV manufacturer, who is going to build vehicles to their spec.

I don't think Amazon does letter deliveries from the driver seat.

Wouldn't it be funny if they did? I can imagine perhaps USPS contracting out some low volume routes to Amazon.

I bet it's the opposite. Amazon delivers in densely populated places where economies of scale make it work and outsources rural delivery to the USPS, an agency with a universal delivery mandate. Yes, the net effect is Amazon "leeching" off the government, but you could also view it as a subsidy to rural Americans, and the government already has a lot of those.

Mail trucks have pretty drastically different requirements than a parcel delivery truck. Mail trucks are designed for a right sided driver and lots of stops on every block, so good visibility to avoid crashing into oncoming traffic or hitting pedestrians in the front is obligatory. Amazon, UPS, and friends have much more infrequent stops. USPS also needs vehicles that can last for decades with much lower maintenance costs than commercial competitors. With the Biden Admin's government fleet electrification plan, they'll also need to be easily built or converted to battery-powered.

And this is a significant difference to how mail is delivered in most of Europe, where the vast majority of last-mile delivery is done on foot or on bike, and relatively little is done by vehicle. Density undoubtedly plays a fair role here.

I especially like that one,

https://newsroom.hermesworld.com/city-logistik-hermes-testet...

Was wowed the first time I encountered one.

Not just density. Many neighborhoods aren't (safely) accessible without a car in the US.

They may only be connected to a highway, with no bus service to it.

> requirements ... obligatory ... needs ...

Yet other countries' mail services manage without all these things just fine?

The US is unique in it's low population density and enormous scale of it's postal service.

Yep. There are very few countries that have a huge land area with extremely remote population and a postal service with a universal service mandate for all its citizens (going so far as to run daily mule trains down the Grand Canyon to service to the Havasupi nation[1])

[1] https://historydaily.org/havasupai-post-office-grand-canyon

OK, both Amazon and Facebook (and likely Google, can't remember) order custom servers for their datacenters, instead of going with readily available Supermicro, Dell, HP, IBM offerings.

Same reasoning here: at such a scale, having a custom-built thing optimized for a bunch of your specific requirements, and made uniform, pays off.

It’s a good question. I went looking for an answer. I found this article [1] which claims the long service life owes to an engine and chassis that, while not exceptionally durable, is cheap and easy to maintain.

The article also says you can learn more at llv.com.

Bonus, I learned that Grumman LLV stands for Grumman Long Life Vehicle. Maybe everyone else already knew that, but I thought it was cool.

1 - https://www.speedsportlife.com/2010/02/22/avoidable-contact-...

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