Mahindra in running for US postal service’s iconic delivery vans | World News - Hindustan Times
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Mahindra in running for US postal service’s iconic delivery vans

Hindustan Times, Detroit, Michigan | ByYashwant Raj, Detroit, Michigan
Nov 21, 2017 10:52 AM IST

Mahindra Americas is on the shortlist of six companies to build the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle to replace the Grumman Long Life Vehicle (LLV) that’s been in use for 30 years since 1987. 

As Mahindra’s top brass filed into town for the inauguration of a new manufacturing facility and headquarters  in Detroit, home to the US and world’s automobile industry - a historic moment for the company - there was one project they have all wanted to talk about the most, but couldn’t.

The logo of Mahindra and Mahindra is seen on a car at a showroom in Mumbai.(Reuters File)
The logo of Mahindra and Mahindra is seen on a car at a showroom in Mumbai.(Reuters File)

“We have been embargoed from talking about it, apart from confirming the fact that we have been shortlisted,” said Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra, here for the inauguration of a first such facility by an Indian company in the heart of America’s automobile country. He added, “We would love to talk about it, but can’t.”

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The man overseeing the project, Richard Haas, a veteran of skunk-work projects spanning 37 years in the industry with a stint in the new Mecca of automobile-related innovations, Tesla, refused to talk about it saying he had already been reprimanded for doing so three times.

All competing companies are subject to the gag order.

Mahindra Americas is on the shortlist of six companies selected by the United States Postal Service (USPS) to build the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle — delivery vans, in short — to replace the Grumman Long Life Vehicle (LLV) that’s been in use for 30 years since 1987. 

The list is now down to five.

Mahindra started the race with 14 others in 2016, a field that was winnowed to six, who were required to turn in prototypes for testing by this September. Mahindra has sent 14, which are undergoing tests that are likely to continue till the spring of 2018. The postal service had then said it “plans to test the vehicles during a period of approximately six months in a range of different climates, topography, population centers and delivery environments”.

The postal service operates more than 200,000 vehicles, of which an estimated 163,000 are LLVs purchased between 1987 and 2001. With an average age of 25 years, most of them are beyond their designed useful life. Their upkeep in maintenance and repairs is said to cost the postal service about a $1 billion a year, which is more than what a new fleet could cost them.

The winner of the multi-billion dollar contract is to be announced next summer or fall, according to US officials who would not discuss any other details of the project that has the industry and the shortlisted companies working feverishly to win.

“It’s not just the money to be made from the project,” an industry source said, requesting not to be identified to be able to talk freely, “but the prospect of touching American homes, exposing them to the best technology from around the world but manufactured here in the United States.”

The other five on the shortlist were, as announced by USPS, AM General, a military and commercial vehicle maker,  Karsan, a Turkish commercial vehicle company, Oshkosh, a maker of commercial and military specialty trucks, Spartan Motors, a manufacturer of vans, parcel delivery vans, and truck bodies, and VT Hackney, a unit of a Singapore-based aerospace, electronics and military contractor.

There are 14 prototypes models, which Mahindra executives can’t, and won’t, talk about, that have been sent for testing, produced at the same facility that the company unveiled to much local and national media attention on Monday in a town that was once the hub of the world’s automobile industry.

What Anand Mahindra, the group chairman who is proud of the project, could talk about, by his own admission, was the “the fact that US Postal Service delivery vans are the only right-hand drive vehicles in the United States”. They are indeed the only right-hand drive vehicles in the United States — to allow delivery personnel to exit the vehicle curbside, without running into incoming traffic.

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