Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

gothamist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 579 posts

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

#521

Post by angry_octet »

sethhochberg wrote: post #495
angry_octet wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a few dedicated snow machines would make the work go so much faster. They’re more effective also because they actually remove the snow (in concert with a heap of regular construction dump trucks) rather than just shoving it onto the gutter/sidewalk. Sure, in NYC it melts fairly quickly, but for main avenues it would be a huge improvement.

"A few" undersells the scale of DSNY's operation. They've already got a few hundred specialized salt/plow trucks on top of the thousands in the mixed garbage truck fleet, and a couple dozen snow melters, about 80 dump trucks, and a few hundred front-end loaders. They recently bought about 50 narrow plows just for bike lanes and bridge sidewalks. After heavy snow are mostly plowed, its a very common sight on busy city…

If they had even a 10th of the organisation of Montreal they wouldn't have such problems. They're relying on the wrong tools.

https://theprepared.org/features-feed/montreal-snow

And this article makes it seem like a huge investment, but in reality these workers do other jobs most of the year, in construction, roadworks, gardening, waste management, etc.

It really seems like NY are wedded to their old ways -- something that was a sensible reuse of an asset (garbage trucks) has solidified into the only possible way to do it. It might be bureaucracy and unions, unimaginative leadership, or inability to allocate the cost due to politics, but it isn't technical.

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

#522

Post by AtlasBarfed »

cogman10 wrote: post #382
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, s…

This sounds like basic math. The Tesla semi has allegedly 900 kW hour batteries and they needed to go three times longer than a 350 kwhr. So how about you get a Mack truck with a 900 kilowatt hour battery or bigger?

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

#523

Post by hoseja »

RhysU wrote: post #447
cogman10 wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fire trucks Would be excellent EVs. They have super low millage and you'd not have to worry about things like stagnant fuel. > ambulances Generally low mileage vehicles, no idea why you'd not be able to use them as EVs. > tow trucks Perhaps the only one that would be bad given the amount of power required to tow a vehicle. > power company trucks Excellent option for EVs because they almost never haul equipment and…

Are you serious?! If my town loses power for two weeks I want fire trucks, ambulances, tow trucks, and especially power company trucks to work! Civic infrastructure should anticipate tail events. > How do you pump fuel if the grid is down? Gravity. Siphons. Manual pumps. Etc. Real complicated stuff known since figuratively Roman times.

You are really blind to the amount of established infrastructure needed to get dinosaur juice to all the boonies.

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

#524

Post by Closi »

cogman10 wrote: post #382
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, s…

> 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.

"The solution is simple - purchase extra fleet just to support a snow-ploughing operation that then sits idle for most of the year, and then hire extra people to drive less efficient routes in the hardest to recruit period of the year!"

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

#525

Post by pifm_guy »

I believe snow could be moved with far less energy.

Today's snow ploughs use a lot of force.

But perhaps with better engineering, new ways to move snow could be invented - for example conveyor systems that move and compact the snow.

Theoretically you can generate power by compacting snow, since the stuff at the top has gravitational potential energy and gives it up when compacted down. Find a way to collect that, and your snowploughs won't need any recharging.

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

#526

Post by bobthepanda »

Closi wrote: post #524
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…

> 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. "The solution is simple - purchase extra fleet just to support a snow-ploughing operation that then sits idle for most of the year, and then hire extra people to drive less efficient routes in the hardest…

Not to mention, source real estate to park extra vehicles in the most expensive real estate market in the country.

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

#527

Post by bobthepanda »

josephcsible wrote: post #479
dizzystar wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The city has to then add trucks to cover this downtime. It's not only the 3 hours of charging every day, it's the time the truck takes to drive to a station, so maybe 4 hours a day. NYC has 2800 snow plows. They would have to increase their fleet another 33% or so. That's 900 to 1000 trucks for a tax-funded service. This extra cost excludes the change in logistics, etc.

Wouldn't a lot of the extra cost for the 33% more trucks get canceled out by each one getting driven that much less, so requiring less maintenance and lasting longer? Other than the part of depreciation that happens because of age rather than mileage/usage, what costs would remain?

You need parking spaces for 33% more trucks. There isn’t exactly land freely available for that in New York.

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

#528

Post by Lutger »

Closi wrote: post #524
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…

> 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. "The solution is simple - purchase extra fleet just to support a snow-ploughing operation that then sits idle for most of the year, and then hire extra people to drive less efficient routes in the hardest…

"The solution is simple - keep using old gasoline vehicles to save a few dollars, which cause massive emissions even while the country suffers megadroughts, winterstorms, wildfires, coastal homes are being flooded and hurricanes grow more intense every year. We pay more in the future, but at least this years budget looks good. If anybody complains, point the finger to China and India."

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

#529

Post by raxxorraxor »

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.

Winter is still a problem for EV. My city (non US) tried to change all busses from diesel to electric. Diesel busses had an efficiency of about 98% (2% time spend in maintenance) while EV busses had about 94%. This ultimately resulted in transport companies to go diesel again in recent years. I think putting some public funds here would be very worth the gain.

Of course electric busses are vastly more convenient. They are almost silent compared to the heavy noise a diesel bus makes on acceleration. Their routes are predictable, so charging can be accounted for. Although a bus can also mount very large batteries to begin with.

But apart from the slight difference in maintenance quota, there also was a problem in winter. When it was cold outside many busses refused to work. They would need to stay within a depot in winter which increases costs again. Still electric busses seem to be an efficient way to curb in-city emissions and noise pollution to a large degree. And I think the problem with temperature can surely be solved somehow.

I do think perfect became the enemy of good here. But there are still valid economic reasons for the private companies that provide these vehicles. Ultimately they don't get paid for their vehicles to be more economical and less noisy.

I don't think it is worth to replace heavy machinery yet. There are just too few vehicles that the investment doesn't seem too reasonable yet as long as there are that many more efficient things to replace.

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

#530

Post by fulafel »

pastor_bob wrote: post #42
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…

Most people would never plug it in. This would only be ideal if you could make using gas significantly more cost inefficient (i.e. astronomically higher gas prices), which will always be unpalatable in the US. Hopefully some states eventually have the guts to do it.

EV benefits to the climate are always congingent on getting rid of fossils.

If we don't ramp down fossils by regulation, all this EV business is worse than useless anyway (we'll just end up with the emissions from battery production in addition to burning up all the oil we can pump - maybe sold abroad if domestically there's a lot of renewables available, but still burned).

Post reply on HN