This smells to me at least a little bit like union pressure to slow the transition to electric vehicles, which is just a hop from fully autonomous city vehicles, putting them all out of work forever.
Seems like a random excuse to Trash talk unions.
NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
241–250 of 579 posts
Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
#242Why 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?
We already have the internet.
Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
With that luxury, sure. Emergencies happen. The garbage needs to be picked up. Total the costs of icy sidewalk slip and falls, lost economic activity, and excess deaths (QALY) over 10 years. Spend 1/4 of that on a series of underground passageways (un)like MIT.
...the costs of icy sidewalk slip and falls...
No garbage-truck/plow is going to fix that, whether it be powered by EV, ICE, or unicorn farts.
Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
#244Earlier 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.
I’m very much interested in this underground system (I don’t know if it is actually implemented): https://www.core77.com/posts/102208/Amsterdams-Smart-System-... It seems to me this sort of trash deposit system would greatly simplify trash collection.
Roosevelt Island (which is a part of the Manhattan borough) actually has an underground, pneumatic trash collection system: https://untappedcities.com/2020/04/09/inside-roosevelt-islan... . I think it would be hard to retrofit such a thing onto the already-built-up parts of the city though.
Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
#245Why 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…
Because it's brilliant.
They need to do both:
Drive a big truck around the city streets pushing a plow to clear them of snow and ice
And
Drive a big truck around to collect garbage
It's much more efficient to do both at the same time, use the same trucks and skilled labor to run them.
It's a classic two birds one stone situation
Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed on all points, though I notice everyone says they are so expensive and hard to maintain, but nobody cites anything (not a criticism - I have no idea myself). However, you don't need availability on every street, just enough to charge the vehicles sufficiently for the smaller streets.
Arnhem in NL and Riga in Latvia, both cities I spend a lot of time in still have them, but I wonder for how long. They're pretty iconic but every few years there is debate about whether or not it is still worth it. Another problem I forgot to mention is that these systems are not very flexible in dealing with mishaps, you can't overtake another trolley bus so if one has a problem the whole system grinds to a halt. An…
I agree about the trolleys on rails and obstacles, which I've seen for myself, but electric vehicles would likely have some battery and run on tires, allowing diversions from the route.
Anyway, I'm guessing it's been considered and I'd love to see the study.
Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
#247Earlier 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.
You're not wrong. I agree with you. I just see that as a better option than continuing to burn fuel in trucks that don't need it 360 days per year.
Might the better option be a hybrid truck, which runs on electricity 90% of the time but has the capacity to use fossil fuels in situations such as these? (snow is but one example, I can imagine other exceptional circumstances where such a vehicle might need an extra boost).
To balance your suggestion, the environmental cost of constructing, shipping, and maintaining a fleet of single-purpose snow plows is not close to zero.
Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 pl…
> specialized power split transmissions The thought occurs to me to make the rear wheels powered by the ICE and the front wheels electric. Then no wacky transmissions. I don't know anything about a "power split" transmission, but isn't that the sort of thing a differential gear set does very well at?
In that case you would still need a transmission for the engine which would likely increase cost and complexity compared to the surprisingly simple and elegant planetary gear transmissions used in most modern hybrids e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Synergy_Drive
By using two electric motors connected to a planetary gearset you can replace the starter and alternator, allow for electric drive and regenerative braking, and provide a continuously variable transmission for the gas engine all with a set of constantly meshed gears (i.e. no shifting components).
Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uh, exactly how long can I go between running the ICE engine before... something(?) happens to my gas and engine?
I don't recall specific models, but I have read some (many? most?) plug-in hybrids monitor how long since the tank was last filled and at a certain point will run the gas engine to work through the fuel before it goes bad.
I've always wondered why there aren't diesel hybrids on the market given the higher energy density of diesel plus its long term stability. It would seem to be the ideal use-case since the diesel engine could be run at the RPM needed to be to minimize emissions.
Re: NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough to plow snow
#250> “ 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.
The MTA actually went from using a lot of hybrid buses to fully diesel at one point[0], and now they're slow rolling out fully electric by...2040[1]. Just far out enough they can do basically nothing over the next couple years, and still claim they're on track. [0] https://nypost.com/2013/06/30/mta-hasnt-purchased-a-hybrid-b... [1] https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/200-electric-buses-are-...
> now they're slow rolling out fully electric by...2040
The MTA operates 5,800 buses [1]. At 525 kWh per bus [2], that’s 3 GwH of batteries fleetwide. Charging those daily is enough to keep a large power plant busy.
[1] https://new.mta.info/project/zero-emission-bus-fleet
[2] https://chargedevs.com/newswire/new-yorks-mta-orders-60-more...