The U.S. Postal Service mentioned Tuesday that it intends to buy at the very least 66,000 electrical supply automobiles as a part of a push to remodel its supply fleet.

The electrical automobiles would quantity to greater than half the 106,000 automobiles it plans to accumulate for supply between now and 2028. The brand new automobiles will begin to exchange its growing old fleet of 220,000 automobiles, the Postal Service mentioned in a press launch.

The Postal Service has confronted public stress from environmental campaigns to impress its fleet.

In April, environmental teams filed a lawsuit towards the USPS for its failure to conduct an enough environmental evaluation earlier than deciding to switch its automobile fleet with extra “fuel-guzzling combustion mail vans,” in line with a press launch from the Sierra Membership.

“As a substitute of receiving air pollution with their every day mail packages, communities throughout the U.S. will get the reduction of cleaner air,” Katherine García, director of the Sierra Membership’s Clear Transportation for All marketing campaign, mentioned in an announcement on Tuesday.

The Sierra Membership was one of many teams pressuring the USPS to go electrical.

The USPS mentioned Tuesday its funding is predicted to succeed in $9.6 billion, a couple of third of which comes from the Inflation Discount Act. The funding will assist the Postal Service construct what has the potential to be one of many largest electrical automobile fleets within the nation, Postmaster Basic Louis DeJoy mentioned in an announcement.

“We’ve got a statutory requirement to ship mail and packages to 163 million addresses six days per week and to cowl our prices in doing so — that’s our mission,” DeJoy mentioned. “As I’ve mentioned up to now, if we are able to obtain these targets in a extra environmentally accountable approach, we are going to achieve this.”