Listen: New Postal Trucks Meet Gov’t Standard — by a Single Pound

Early last year, Wisconsin defense contractor Oshkosh Defense secured a multi-billion dollar contract to build the next generation of mail trucks for the U.S. Postal Service.The program aims to begin replacing the Post Office’s crumbling, 30-year-old vehicle fleet beginning next year, but the Oshkosh effort has come under fire for everything from a relative lack of electrified mail trucks to the bidding process itself.Now, a new report suggests that the new gas-powered trucks needed some strings to be pulled in order to be considered street-legal at all.According to a report in Vice, an Environmental Protection Agency review of the process noted that the gas trucks would come in at a total vehicle weight of 8,501 pounds — a figure that combines the truck weight of 5,560 pounds with its estimated payload of 2,941 pounds.If that seems like an oddly specific cargo weight to you, you’re not alone.