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NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow

gothamist.com

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Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow

#91

Post by danans »

legitster wrote: post #11

> “ With current technology, full electrification isn’t possible now for some parts of our fleet, but we are monitoring closely and really hope it will be,” Gragnani said. We are really letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. At this moment in time, Plug-in hybrids are the superior technology for nearly every application. I don't understand why they get so overlooked by consumers and manufacturers alike.

> At this moment in time, Plug-in hybrids are the superior technology for nearly every application. I don't understand why they get so overlooked by consumers and manufacturers alike.

Plugin hybrids cars are expensive, not at the least because they require both a traditional ICE drivetrain and a large battery and electric motor, and specialized power split transmissions to make those work together.

Therefore, most plugin hybrids are higher end (just like EVs) and marketed at wealthier people who want to drive electric most of the time but have range anxiety or don't want to deal with DC fast charging. Look for yourself:

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g15377500/plug-in-hybr...

That said, they can make a lot of sense if you need 1 car that can do everything, both short daily drives and long trips. The sleeper hit here is the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. The new ones have 38miles electric range and seat 7.

However, the falling price of batteries and growth of DC fast charging infrastructure means that they will PHEVs will be a bridge technology.

Many city buses however are starting to convert to some form of plugin hybrid, although even their

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_electric_bus#List_of_tr...

However, even city buses are moving towards full electrification since the maintenance and fuel costs tend to dominate the total cost of ownership for them, and those are much lower with full electric.

Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow

#92

Post by darkwizard42 »

hef19898 wrote: post #68
i_am_proteus wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the headline references "power," the issue is that these electric trucks do not have enough battery capacity to plow snow for a full day before recharging overnight. I have always thought that municipal road services had great potential to be electrified via partial catenary: take power from (and charge batteries) where the roads are electrified, discharge battery where the roads are not electrified.

Stupid question so, why would you use a garbage truck to plow snow? Over here, cities, towns and musipalities use different vehicles for different jobs, suxh as garbage, snow plowing, street cleaning and so on...

Garbage trucks have easy attachment of snow plows and allow existing infrastructure to be on double duty. In a place like NYC storage of this many vehicles is also a concern, so just doubling your fleet for winter (3, maybe 4 months) usage isn't ideal either.

Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow

#94

Post by LarryMullins »

legitster wrote: post #22
IronWolve wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swappable batteries is how some countries are migrating to ev for motorcycle/scooter taxis, just swap batteries and keep moving passengers. The cost savings seems to be worth it, read that its about 75% savings against fuel costs. The easy solutions will go first, working its way up with better tech and design. I think car/fleet size batteries isn't really feasible with swapping batteries. Small scooter batteries see…

I don't know about this. I don't think battery swapping scales up very well. Firstly, I know someone who works on Daimler's electric trucks and he assures me that their electric powertrains are EXTREMELY dangerous just from the amount of power represented. Union operators have expressed negative interest in connecting/disconnecting the batteries outside of the factory. Secondly, the economics - the battery pack on a…

> Union operators have expressed negative interest in connecting/disconnecting the batteries outside of the factory.

To be fair, union operators express negative interest in anybody outside their union doing anything that might be construed as otherwise the union's work.

Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow

#95

Post by jaywalk »

nickpp wrote: post #83
chitowneats wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It never ceases to amaze me that the self styled "Greatest City on Earth" can't come up with a reasonable solution for its garbage.

Garbage is a difficult issue everywhere. Part of the entropy problem of the universe…

I can't think of another major city where there are piles of garbage bags on the sidewalks everywhere.

Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow

#96

Post by rz2k »

hef19898 wrote: post #68
i_am_proteus wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the headline references "power," the issue is that these electric trucks do not have enough battery capacity to plow snow for a full day before recharging overnight. I have always thought that municipal road services had great potential to be electrified via partial catenary: take power from (and charge batteries) where the roads are electrified, discharge battery where the roads are not electrified.

Stupid question so, why would you use a garbage truck to plow snow? Over here, cities, towns and musipalities use different vehicles for different jobs, suxh as garbage, snow plowing, street cleaning and so on...

They very rarely need to plow snow in New York city, but when they do there are hundreds of miles to plow, and it is much faster if they begin the plowing before even an inch accumulates.

It is much more efficient to press the thousands garbage trucks into this rapid snow plowing service a few days per year than to waste 20 acres storing snow plows for the 350 days per year when they are not needed.

Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow

#97

Post by LarryMullins »

Ekaros wrote: post #90
hef19898 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stupid question so, why would you use a garbage truck to plow snow? Over here, cities, towns and musipalities use different vehicles for different jobs, suxh as garbage, snow plowing, street cleaning and so on...

It is one of those solutions that at first look might sound good. But with closer inspection there is more and more problems. Like for example is equipping the trucks sensible? And what happens to the garbage that should have been collected? And training people for both jobs. As driving snow truck does require some expertise.

This is one of those objections that sounds good at first. But upon closer inspection you find out that the practice of using one truck for two different sorts of jobs has been commonplace for decades and it works out fine.

Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow

#98

Post by jonny_eh »

nickpp wrote: post #83
chitowneats wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It never ceases to amaze me that the self styled "Greatest City on Earth" can't come up with a reasonable solution for its garbage.

Garbage is a difficult issue everywhere. Part of the entropy problem of the universe…

> I can't think of another major city where there are piles of garbage bags on the sidewalks everywhere.

Other cities have alleyways.

Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow

#99

Post by burkaman »

chitowneats wrote: post #77
jeffbee wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC garbage trucks spend a very long time parked in front of the same building all night, crushing bags full of plastic coffee cups. Ask anyone who has ever tried to sleep in Manhattan. A completely reasonable solution that doesn't require a wholesale change in the way refuse is collected in that city would be to plug the truck in at the building where it is standing. That said, a wholesale change is what they need.

It never ceases to amaze me that the self styled "Greatest City on Earth" can't come up with a reasonable solution for its garbage.

Doesn't basically every city call itself the greatest city on earth?

Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow

#100

Post by brink »

WWLink wrote: post #86
ecshafer wrote: post #70

Battery operated garbage trucks don't sound like a great idea, at least for all day use. With the push for EV I am not sure why we aren't seeing a push for the installation of streetcar power lines, these already exist and are used for busses. If we have a garbage truck that has the battery capacity for say 30 minutes, then it could be on the power line for the majority of the time. This would limit battery waste as…

I agree, what we need is to make them blow the blackest black diesel smoke possible.

This isn't a one dimensional problem where diesel smoke is the only factor at play.
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