Fuel-Efficient Vehicles

On June 1, 2009, the General Services Administration (GSA) made a $210 million purchase of new vehicles from Chrysler, Ford and General Motors using a portion of the funds provided to GSA in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (P.L. 111-5). Part of this GSA purchase benefited the Postal Service by allowing it to replace over 6,500 vehicles from its current fleet with more fuel-efficient models. Of that number, 1,000 of the new vehicles were E-85 ethanol-capable and 900 were hybrids. The other 4,600 were conventional cars powered by four-cylinder gasoline-powered engines. Each new vehicle had a higher miles-per-gallon rating than the one it replaced. The excess of the fair value of the new vehicles over the fair value of the vehicles surrendered was treated as a capital contribution of the U.S. government on our balance sheet. The first 3,424 vehicles received in 2009 had a fair market value of approximately $57 million, replacing vehicles with a book value of $4 million.