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

gothamist.com

161–170 of 579 posts

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

#161

I was thinking about vehicles that can't switch to electric power. The tech's not there yet, and may never be. Cargo ships. Jumbo jets. Military aircraft. Specialized industrial vehicles, such as those used for mines. Unless these use cases are made obsolete (possible, such as military) society will depend on fossil fuels for many decades to come.

Not fossil fuels, but rather hydrocarbon fuels. You can technically synthesize fuel for those use cases in a carbon-neutral manner.

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

#163
post #104

Why are they using garbage trucks to plow snow? Looks, I get that I'm biased being in Canada, but do they understand that you can buy dedicated vehicles for plowing snow ? They're called... snowplows. They're pretty fantastic. You need garbage trucks every day, all year. Electrify those. You need snowplows on a handful of days per year- and that number is falling thanks to climate change. So buy purpose-built snowplo…

Why have garbage trucks at all when you can have a series of tubes to transport garbage?

Yeah NYC really needs to get rid of the garbage trucks. Or figure out something. Garbage is becoming a problem for the city.

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

#164
It's discussed elsewhere in the thread, but overehead wires seem appealing:

* They solve the power availability problem

* They reduce the need for batteries, reducing cost and waste from manufacturing and disposal.

* They could be used for electrifying other vehicles like buses

* Their ROI seems especially high in dense cities, especially NY: One overhead wire serves all the traffic on the road below. Plus, dense cities like NY already have infrastructure citywide, and experience servicing it.

* What if we could provide power to electric cars in NYC. That could be transformative. I don't know that electric wires would be the best form for that, or how it could be done (is there a safe way to embed something in the ground?).

* Some point out that the garbage trucks need to cover almost every street in the city. The power supply doesn't have to do that; it only has to be available enough to charge the vehicles sufficietly to plow/pickup on the side street and return to the main road.

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

#165
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "take a toll" mean? Sorry to be difficult but people tell me a lot of things will damage my car in the long term, but I haven't been able to reproduce any of those problems yet. The only thing that damaged my car was putting too much oil in it, that caused it to fail nearly immediately, and was covered by the warranty so it was free to replace the whole engine.

Eh, your car will run a little shitty with the old gas, leaving an engine without running it for extended periods can cause somewhat faster corrosion depending on your environment, and old gas can increase things like various gunk getting deposited around your engine. All in all, a mild shortening of the life of your engine and perhaps triggering some maintenance sooner than otherwise. Realistically, not much. The pe…

Thank you! This was my conclusion as well: there's an effect, it's small, and was probably much larger 30 years ago.

I also only have the oil changed every 10K miles which horrifies my friends.

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

#166
post #129

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…

The power lines that trolleybuses use don’t cover an entire city. They’re only installed on the routes the buses are scheduled to run on, and only for the parts of the streets buses will use. They’re like train tracks in that way, but hanging in the air instead of embedded in the ground. Garbage truck fleets are expected to cover every street and every block in their service area which adds up to more of a city than…

They are also a maintenance headache, especially in icy conditions.

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

#167

It's discussed elsewhere in the thread, but overehead wires seem appealing: * They solve the power availability problem * They reduce the need for batteries, reducing cost and waste from manufacturing and disposal. * They could be used for electrifying other vehicles like buses * Their ROI seems especially high in dense cities, especially NY: One overhead wire serves all the traffic on the road below. Plus, dense cit…

They work for buses because buses follow set routes. There aren't overhead lines running through every single street. By comparison, garbage trucks do have to patrol essentially every street. Putting overhead lines through every street may be more expensive than batteries.

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

#168

It's discussed elsewhere in the thread, but overehead wires seem appealing: * They solve the power availability problem * They reduce the need for batteries, reducing cost and waste from manufacturing and disposal. * They could be used for electrifying other vehicles like buses * Their ROI seems especially high in dense cities, especially NY: One overhead wire serves all the traffic on the road below. Plus, dense cit…

Adding overhead wires in Manhattan seems like literal insanity to me. There’s way too much shut going on at all times.

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

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why have garbage trucks at all when you can have a series of tubes to transport garbage?

NYC technically already has this in Roosevelt Island.

Just context for international readers: Roosevelt Island has 11,000 residents, or 0.1% of NYC's population. The point stands, just providing context.

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

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC has 30,000 streets and only a handful of days of snow in the year. By having garbage trucks that can deal with a few inches of snow, you avoid the need of buying dozens of dedicated vehicles that will rot 360 days a year.

> only a handful of days of snow in the year I know modern economy has gone full-JIT but I naively wish we could just stop in this case and.. wait. Then this question of truck fleet would be moot.

> naively wish we could just stop in this case and.. wait

Congratulations, you shut off logistics and emergency services for a population the size of Virginia.

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