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Cambridge gets a charge out of new garbage trucks
By adamg on Tue, 11/12/2024 - 3:16pm
Cambridge today rolled out the first of four battery-operated trash trucks it's buying to reduce carbon emissions from city vehicles.
Along with the first Mack LR Electric trash hauler, the city installed two DC fast chargers to keep its 376-kWh battery pack charged. The city expects one complete charge to be good for eight hours of service - which means the truck should be able to go two or three days before needing a full recharge.
The city plans to accept its next two electric trash trucks in early 2025.
Before committing to the new trucks, city Public Works officials visited a place that really knows trash. In a statement, John Keeter, the Works fleet manager John Keeter said:
We did extensive research, including a visit to the New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY) to learn about their LR Electric demo model. DSNY’s approach to refuse collection closely resembles ours, so we knew these trucks would be a good fit for Cambridge. We look forward to adding more fully electric rubbish trucks as we continue electrifying our municipal fleet and paving the way towards a more sustainable future.
The city took advantage of state and possibly soon to disappear federal rebates for electric vehicles:
The Massachusetts Offers Rebates for Electric Vehicles (MOR-EV) program provided a $99,000 rebate for each of the first two trucks, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) program will contribute a $305,000 grant toward the cost of the third vehicle.
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Comments
Seems like a good use case …
Unlike, say, transit buses.
An electric bus has to run about 200 miles over the course of a day, I assume an electric trash truck only covers about 50. If it's 100˚ or 10˚, a trash truck doesn't have to heat or cool the trash, unlike a bus, where range decreases significantly (by at least 50%, which is why the T buys unregulated heaters for its electric buses, so they actually produce more local pollution than the diesel buses they replace). If a trash truck does run out of juice, the worst that happens is that the trash gets picked up the next day, not the end of the world, rather than degrading overall service.
Here's an idea
Batteries don't store enough electricity to be effective but electric power is still more efficient and cleaner. So what if the MBTA ran electric wires (kinda like for the trolleys but two instead of one) and used electric buses with some contraption to touch the wires overhead? The busses would probably last a long time too.
Of course, it would be wrong to try this on the whole system right away so it would be good to pick just a few bus lines to try it at first. Perhaps something easy like Mass Ave in Cambridge and a few routes from Harvard Square into Belmont and Watertown.
I really think this could work!
Sigh
The wires are almost all still there, too
Not so much...
Trolleybus wires on Mount Auburn St on the Watertown side should be 100% gone soon, with the poles coming out with the reconstruction. Recently noticed that Aberdeen & Mount Auburn has had new traffic lights installed, too.
Seems like the only substantial sections left are Trapelo Rd within Belmont (the Cambridge section got wiped out recently) and the Harvard tunnel. Trapelo was reinstalled in 2016 (!) and of course the Harvard tunnel got it's wire replaced in 2020-2021 (!!!!).
Though, all in all, I'm still surprised the T didn't move faster on the wire removal...but it seems like they didn't need to, as they did their homework with the municipalities to ensure they'd never return.
The State Senator who relayed the
The State Senator who relayed (championed?) the message that the wires were a hinderance to fire equipment (and there fore an extant hazard,) so therefore, of all the stated reasons for de-electrifying this “safety concern” should have resulted in the wires being down by now. I have never asked a local firefighter if the trolley wires hindered operations.
I was never too put out by “bus stacking,” and the new less-jerky trolley’s contact arms popped off far, far less frequently.
I liked the trolleys. They had a charm that was priceless. It’s regrettable the times are too austere to have them and the manpower to keep them working.
Also, with regard to the electric trash trucks they’re going to have to manage the “return to base for charge” point to not block an entire one-way street.
Also, with regard to the
That's a training issue. Its no different with a Diesel truck. "Don't run to empty" is kinda universal. These will all still have human drivers and workers.
EV Garbage Truck
The dirtiest clean vehicle possible.
Sysco
I've seen them making deliveries in Boston in recent weeks with an electric tractor pulling a refrigerated trailer. Their distribution center is down in Plympton so it's at least making the 40+ mile drive each way to get in and out of the city.
Do the trailers have their
Do the trailers have their own power source for HVAC? Curious, I don't know that world that well, but I do know that things that come off the Sysco truck are very cold.
I'm not sure what they are running here
But their website speaks of 23 electric trucks and 5 electric trailers globally in FY23, so I assume most of their trailers still require fuel based power for cooling.
https://www.sysco.com/sustainability/corporate-social-responsibility
When I worked at the Scout camp, there wasnt much that felt better on a hot day than receiving Sysco delivery when the driver would open up the freezer compartment and you got a blast of cold air at the back of the trailer.
One of these is operating in
One of these is operating in Southie. Maybe by the DCR because I usually see it on Day Blvd. It’s awesome. The most surprising and refreshing thing is not the lack of diesel fumes its the lack of noise. It’s so quiet. I’m sold on electrfication for noise reduction alone.
The quiet side of electric?
Forget the environment - does electric mean these things will actually be quiet?!?!? Trying to have ea work meeting with these rumbling down the street is the pits.