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

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

#281

Post by gowings97 »

treis wrote: post #84
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.

Because they need both an ICE and battery powered engine it's a more complex & expensive solution than picking one or the other. Not only expensive in dollars but car weight, storage room, maintenance, and so on. It's okay as an intermediate step but all electric is much better long term.

"it's a more complex & expensive solution than picking one or the other."

Not for NMC batteries, which continue to go up in price (so much for the downward EV battery price trend EV promoters promised would materialize with the economies of scale).

And LFP batteries don't have the necessary performance characteristics for high load applications.

The great EV brownout of 2023 has arrived.

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

#282

Post by happyopossum »

jacquesm wrote: post #228
wolverine876 wrote: post #210

Earlier 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…

The buses I’m familiar with that use overhead power lines don’t use them exclusively - they have batteries or diesel for when they venture off the powered lines.

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

#284

Post by grumple »

ars wrote: post #134
echlebek wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is that most other major cities have garbage collection figured out in a better way. For instance in my city, garbage is kept in a dedicated garage area in each apartment building, and on a scheduled day, it's picked up either right in the building or in the alley after the caretaker moves the dumpsters there. The fact that this is considered politically untenable in New York is frankly insane, glad I don…

> in a dedicated garage area in each apartment building NY has a lot of row houses, there's no room for a dedicated garbage area. And the alleys are not wide enough for a garbage truck. Before criticizing a place, at least understand it first.

As someone from a dense city with generally smaller roads than NYC (Philly), I think that's untrue. If NYC wanted to do it, it could be done. In Philly, trucks make it down alleys where the roadway is half the size of the truck. Or they wheel the dumpsters down the alley to the corner. That doesn't mean every alley is suitable, but you can put the dumpster on the main road where you put the trash, or do as our European friends suggest.

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

#286

Post by djtriptych »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #253
djtriptych wrote: post #230

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.

> union pressure to slow the transition to electric vehicles, which is just a hop from fully autonomous city vehicles Wouldn’t this incentivise earlier fleet turnover to electric? If you’ve just bought an electric fleet, it’s tougher to justify turning it over again for autonomous only.

Interesting wrinkle

I'd have to think any fully electric car is a better target for autonomous retrofitting, because the drivetrain is already completely fly-by-wire?

Using a random estimate, a $100,000/vehicle autonomous retrofit probably pays for itself in like a year. The initial outlay of let's say a half billion to replace the city's fleet with EVs is a much bigger hurdle.

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

#287

Post by Y_Y »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #170
alcover wrote: post #131

Earlier 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.

> 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.

[flagged]

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

#288

Post by jacquesm »

happyopossum wrote: post #282
jacquesm wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The buses I’m familiar with that use overhead power lines don’t use them exclusively - they have batteries or diesel for when they venture off the powered lines.

Interesting, I've seen them stuck more than once, I'll have to check up on what the deal is there, I walk by the depot every couple of days and I'm sure they'll be happy to talk about it.

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

#289

Post by enragedcacti »

xenadu02 wrote: post #37
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been saying this for years. I just don't understand it. A car that can drive ~40 miles on pure electric that has an ICE for longer trips would satisfy the needs of everyone. For like 90+% of people, it would mean never using gas for their commute while also eliminating range anxiety. I'm especially surprised about the lack of plug-in hybrids for semi trucks. I'd think having a little extra electronic torque woul…

This more than doubles the complexity, increases weight, has much lower battery capacity, and still sticks you with the maintenance work required for the ICE. Plus gas is a very volatile mix that degrades; you must run the ICE regularly to ensure the tank gets cycled.

> This more than doubles the complexity

hybrid systems are complex but really not much more complex than traditional ICE when you consider that they no longer need starters or alternators, have transmissions with no shifting components, and can use electric A/C compressors to avoid accessory belts entirely.

They also have much longer maintenance intervals because the engine is only running ~2/3rds of the time.

Electric cars are of course simpler but have cost and range issues that are prohibitive for some use cases, not to mention will usually weigh much more than even an equivalent plugin hybrid.

Suffice to say there is a reason that the best taxi vehicle has been the Prius for more than a decade. efficient and rock solid reliable despite increased complexity.

Most importantly though, you can make 10 plugin hybrids with the battery from one BEV. As long as raw materials for batteries are a bottleneck then we should be seriously considering PHEVs as a stopgap if as we can make sure they are getting charged.

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

#290

Post by chitowneats »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #200
chitowneats wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even hear people from LA or SF boast the way they do in New Yawk.

> don't even hear people from LA or SF boast the way they do in New Yawk Every borough except Staten Island is larger than San Francisco [1][2]. Manhattan together with Queens or Brooklyn is bigger than LA, the second-largest city in America. (Staten Island is about the size of Raleigh or Atlanta.) New York solves problems at a scale no other American city comes close to imagining. [1] https://www.nyc.gov/site/planni…

This is exactly what I mean. You guys have no idea how silly you sound everywhere else.

I also noticed your sleight of hand. "Greatest city in the world" includes Tokyo, Paris, Seoul. All far superior to NYC in almost every way, with similar issues of scale.

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