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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

#431

Post by aidenn0 »

Dalewyn wrote: post #419
cogman10 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, s…

If the EV plows aren't drop-in replacements for ICE plows, then they are not fit for service. Be an EV fanboi all you want. There are practical tasks that must be accomplished, and if one option achieves those tasks while another doesn't then the one that couldn't needs to either meet the competition or drop out.

While I agree waiting to electrify is the correct choice here (for so many reasons), this statement:

> If the EV plows aren't drop-in replacements for ICE plows, then they are not fit for service.

Is just false. The same logic would have prevented cars from displacing horses because cars aren't drop-in replacements for horses either. There are almost always tradeoffs for adopting new technologies, and demanding that EVs be strictly superior to ICE vehicles is absurd.

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

#432

Post by ClumsyPilot »

chimeracoder wrote: post #322
specialp wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Netherlands has absolutely nowhere approaching the density of NYC. Even Queens has a density twice that of Amsterdam, and Manhattan 7x. If you see NYC on garbage days the streets are lined with mountains of bags. Each corner would have to have a virtual mine shaft to hold 1000s of bags of garbage. Also contrary to movies, Manhattan has almost no alley ways either. There's no space for anything. Even when it snows…

> If you see NYC on garbage days the streets are lined with mountains of bags. Each corner would have to have a virtual mine shaft to hold 1000s of bags of garbage. Or, you know, a commercial-sized dumpster. The trash is already taking up space on the sidewalk. Putting a dumpster to contain it would save space, by keeping it contained.

> The trash is already taking up space on the sidewalk. Putting a dumpster to contain it would save space, by keeping it contained

It is always fun to see people resort to completely illogical arguments to defend the current habits and rat-feeding status quo.

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

#433

Post by lamontcg »

the-rc wrote: post #430
lamontcg wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the city added batteries instead of plows? Have recharging stations that swapped batteries. Requires building the plows around hot swappable batteries and a station with some fixed hydraulics that can drop them in and out. Requires a bit of redundancy by having multiple stations to swap batteries and something like forklifts to drag them around and charge the spent batteries. Probably not a good consumer solu…

There are many stations already, every few blocks. And the company running them, Citibike, already wants to connect them to the grid. Now you have a more tractable problem: when there's snow coming, some of the (many) unused bike racks can be dedicated to recharge truck batteries instead. I don't know what the hydraulics would look like and if that's something that can be installed seasonally or perhaps just a few da…

I'm assuming the trucks are parked somewhere in depot(s) so you'd probably put the infrastructure there to swap them out and charge them.

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

#434

Post by brnt »

simmonmt wrote: post #291
brnt wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in row houses can't walk to the corner of the street? That's how it works in much of the Netherlands, underground bins spread over suburbia, which is like 90% row house. Works fine. I wish we had it here (still need to put my bin/bags out on the designated day).

By row house do you mean something like this? https://goo.gl/maps/XTDwyAZy6GoqPRXt7 That's 4-5 stories of ~4 apartments per floor, times however many of those buildings fit in the 900ft/247m length of a block. There's nowhere near enough space on the corner (here's the corner: https://goo.gl/maps/aszPHqrQVGftcqTCA ) to collect that much garbage, much less to do it three times a week. Yes they could build big undergro…

> Yes they could build big underground containers.

Obviously. (What else?) Why would that be a massive project?

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

#435

Post by brnt »

specialp wrote: post #312
brnt wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in row houses can't walk to the corner of the street? That's how it works in much of the Netherlands, underground bins spread over suburbia, which is like 90% row house. Works fine. I wish we had it here (still need to put my bin/bags out on the designated day).

The Netherlands has absolutely nowhere approaching the density of NYC. Even Queens has a density twice that of Amsterdam, and Manhattan 7x. If you see NYC on garbage days the streets are lined with mountains of bags. Each corner would have to have a virtual mine shaft to hold 1000s of bags of garbage. Also contrary to movies, Manhattan has almost no alley ways either. There's no space for anything. Even when it snows…

> The Netherlands has absolutely nowhere approaching the density of NYC.

We were talking about the row houses, right?

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

#436

Post by cwillu »

andkenneth wrote: post #420
Dalewyn wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the EV plows aren't drop-in replacements for ICE plows, then they are not fit for service. Be an EV fanboi all you want. There are practical tasks that must be accomplished, and if one option achieves those tasks while another doesn't then the one that couldn't needs to either meet the competition or drop out.

That's garbage. We have a lot of things that work worse now because of health or environmental concerns. Leaded fuel gives way better performance but makes you dumb. CFCs are better and cheaper than the refrigerants we use now but put a hole in the ozone layer. Aluminium in underarm deodorant may give you cancer but it is pretty good at stopping underarm stink. Technology choice is full of tradeoffs. Now EVs might no…

Service degradation is one thing, but a high profile failure can outright kill the adoption of something that would have been feasible with a bit more time in the techno-oven.

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

#437

Post by the-rc »

lamontcg wrote: post #433
the-rc wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many stations already, every few blocks. And the company running them, Citibike, already wants to connect them to the grid. Now you have a more tractable problem: when there's snow coming, some of the (many) unused bike racks can be dedicated to recharge truck batteries instead. I don't know what the hydraulics would look like and if that's something that can be installed seasonally or perhaps just a few da…

I'm assuming the trucks are parked somewhere in depot(s) so you'd probably put the infrastructure there to swap them out and charge them.

There are many more bike stations than truck depots. You could conceivably swap batteries multiple times during a 12h shift without having to make detours. And if you know there's going to be a lot of plowing, you could place batteries throughout the city ahead of time. Heavy storms rarely show up without warning signs. Elsewhere I suggested stockpiling batteries from other non-essential vehicles, so you don't need excessive redundant capacity that sits idle 95% of the year. That's why repurposing bike stations could help: you're not stuck with a lot of infrastructure that is needed only 5% of the year.

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

#438

Post by hanniabu »

jcrawfordor wrote: post #392
RC_ITR wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A much bigger problem than the lines are the switches. Switching of trolley buses at intersections is not really all that well solved of a problem as is, and the solutions available right now (up to the most sophisticated based on radio signaling) are a primary failure point, maintenance intensive, and expensive and complex enough that the cost of a four-way intersection set up for four-way electric travel is going t…

> Switching of trolley buses at intersections is not really all that well solved of a problem as is

Like the parent comment said, it would be a hybrid able to use battery power when not on the line. With this type of system you could then just run parallel lines instead of criss-crossing lines.

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

#439

Post by RC_ITR »

jcrawfordor wrote: post #392
RC_ITR wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A much bigger problem than the lines are the switches. Switching of trolley buses at intersections is not really all that well solved of a problem as is, and the solutions available right now (up to the most sophisticated based on radio signaling) are a primary failure point, maintenance intensive, and expensive and complex enough that the cost of a four-way intersection set up for four-way electric travel is going t…

I'm not saying attach the overheads to the light poles, I'm saying we do things of similar scale/difficulty all the time (while we are very far from at-scale battery based transport).

Batteries are fun and all, but they are way harder to deal with vs. anything you described; they're just earlier in the development curve, so the problems seem more solvable.

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

#440

Post by cogman10 »

sangnoir wrote: post #417
cogman10 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, s…

> Rather, it sounds like they want to run their EV plows like they run their regular plows. Probably because they have to use regular dollars to buy one or the other: cost-effectiveness cannot be ignored.

EVs will have a longer service life, less maintenance, and MUCH lower fuel costs.

EVs are cost effective (but not immediately so).

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