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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

#381

Post by legitster »

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 okay as an intermediate step but all electric is much better long term.

Sure, but given the long term might be longer than the average consumer holds onto a new car, there's a lot of value in a good intermediate solution.

The average person drives less than 30 miles a day. Building a 360 mile EV battery just to handle long-tail events seems very wasteful.

Given that Lithium battery production is largely the bottleneck to full electrification, you could use the batteries from 1 Tesla and make 6 plug-in hybrids from them. And then get pretty close to 6x-ing the amount of carbon saved.

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

#382

Post by cogman10 »

sethhochberg wrote: post #336

There's a lot of discussion here, but I haven't seen anyone link this slide deck which (albeit a couple of years old) does a great job describing DSNY's efforts to electrify and some of their results with pilot programs: https://dsny.cityofnewyork.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/DSN... A lot of the things being proposed as solutions by posters here are already being tried in the real world. They're not running long-dis…

> We found that they could not plow the snow effectively – they basically conked out after four hours. We need them to go 12 hours

This doesn't sound like they are trying to do short routes or fast charging stations. Rather, it sounds like they want to run their EV plows like they run their regular plows.

The majority of LI batteries can be recharged in 1 hour with enough juice. Even if you say "well, it's a truck, so probably needs more time" current level 3 chargers can kick out 350kW of power. Yet this report talks about putting in 50 and 150kw chargers.

The mac trucks they are referencing have 350kWh battery packs in them.

The solution is really quiet simple, recharge the trucks and buy a few more to account for the fact that you have to recharge an hour for every 4 in operation. Stop trying to run your trucks for 12 hours straight.

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

#383

Post by mywittyname »

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.

There are cases where hybrids remove complexity because they can be designed to operate either without transmissions, or with substantially more simple transmissions. Hybrids are cheaper than EVs since a good chunk of expensive batteries can be off-set by an ICE.

Hybrids are probably the end-game for any forms of transportation that require operation for a long period of time. A dump truck, for example, could have its 12L, 400hp diesel engine replaced with a 1L, 60hp engine that charges the batteries that drive the electric motors. Since the auxiliary engine only needs to be able to provide just enough juice for cruising, it can be made much smaller.

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

#384

Post by RC_ITR »

vinaypai wrote: post #375
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…

You would need to install power lines on every single street for that to work. Streetcars for transportation can just electrify a few routes.

Would you believe that every house requires power lines to be run to it too?

It only seems like a daunting problem on roads because we don't already do it.

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

#385

Post by legitster »

SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #364
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.

Or just to extend this a bit further, maybe we keep ICE for a few specific applications? I want a full conversion just as much as anyone who lives on this planet does, but I can see some cases being allowed for as our technology catches up to the lingering problems.

I think this is exactly why carbon sequestration technology is so important.

During our lifetime there are certain ICE applications that we really have no good alternatives for. So finding a palatable cost for carbon removal we are collectively willing to pay buys us a lot of options.

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

#386

Post by jcrawfordor »

newsclues wrote: post #342
sh1mmer wrote: post #305

For these industrial use cases I’m surprised hot swappable batteries aren’t being considered more. Are these current trucks doing 12 hour shifts plowing snow and hauling garbage on a single tank of diesel, or are they refueling? I get that fast changing infrastructure is hard and waiting 15-90 minutes to charge a battery isn’t ideal. But couldn’t they stop to swap out batteries or have another vehicle meet each truck…

Is 3MPG really that bad, given the size and stop and go? I assume they are 10x the load of a pickup truck and F-150s don't get 30MPG city do they?

3MPG strikes me as pretty good for a garbage truck. Heavy diesel vehicles weigh a LOT more than passenger cars and 3-7MPG is pretty typical territory. Garbage trucks spend so much time idling and starting/stopping they're going to be about the worst case. They also run very heavy for their size.

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

#387

Post by rootusrootus »

jdc0589 wrote: post #367
SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just to extend this a bit further, maybe we keep ICE for a few specific applications? I want a full conversion just as much as anyone who lives on this planet does, but I can see some cases being allowed for as our technology catches up to the lingering problems.

thats what will happen. Think about farmers, people in more rural areas, homesteaders, etc... There is no high capacity supercharger network there and isn't likely to be. ICE machinery is incredibly important to them. A total conversion to electric isn't feasible in a lot of places like that.

Some people will have niche cases for sure, but I've talked to a number of farmers who drive EVs both on the road and on their farm and are really happy with it. They do get electric service too, that's not just something only city dwellers get.

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

#388

Post by scythe »

to11mtm wrote: post #329
fencepost wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Garbage trucks are probably one of the best places for it actually, because they stop so frequently. Unfortunately the article is about plow trucks instead which have a very different use case - New York just happens to use the same vehicles for both so they have a smaller fleet that's not as well suited to either task. For garbage trucks you have stop and go movement so EVs eliminate idling. Given the size of the tr…

Around here, a notable number of Garbage trucks are LPG or some variant [1]. Having driven a Hybrid 'Truck' (really more of a ute[2]) for just under a year, I can say that EV plows will likely show their deficiencies when you need them the most [3]. [1] - On the whole, this is still better than doing nothing with it and just allowing it to vent, or burning on-site (which, sometimes you do see at local landfills.) [2]…

>EV plows will likely show their deficiencies when you need them the most

Not necessarily. The heaviest snow falls just below freezing. Very low temperatures bring light, fluffy stuff — the kind skiers crave, and that a human can lift huge shovels of.

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

#389

Post by vinaypai »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #89
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.

> never ceases to amaze me that the self styled "Greatest City on Earth" can't come up with a reasonable solution for its garbage The status quo is sanitary and efficient. All things considered, New York’s garbage problem is on par with its snow problem. Well managed enough to work, but annoying enough around the edges to be fun to bicker about. If you live in low-density New York, your experience mirrors suburbia; h…

What do you think happens to the trash after it "disappears down the chute"?

You might not haul it to the curb yourself but the building as staff still has to unless you're in a building big enough to have a loading dock that can accommodate a truck to haul away a roll-on container. Most high rises don't even fall into that category. I live in a 20 story building with 157 units and the building staff has to drag the piles of trash out of the compactor room to the sidewalk on collection days.

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

#390

Post by Robotbeat »

wolverine876 wrote: post #246
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…

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.

Another thing is that battery-electric vehicles can be used as drop-in replacements on all existing routes. You don’t need to do environmental reviews or meet with NIMBY stakeholders or shut down local businesses while you install the overhead infrastructure, you just buy the trucks and go (can charge overnight using on-board charger and existing electrical infrastructure… can expand this to accommodate the increased load like you would for any other increased electrical load like the move to air conditioning… but you can get up and operating immediately).
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