Posted on 03/05/2015 5:37:16 PM PST by LogicDesigner
If one raises the topic of electric vehicles (EVs), everybody seems focused on Tesla these days. How many vehicles have they sold? Is Apple a would-be competitor? Where’s the stock going? And of course Tesla and its EV brethren have tremendous potential to reduce overall energy consumption and pollution, if sold in significant volumes. To date, there are over 250,000 EVs on the road, which is a solid start.
But if one really wants to cut down on fuel use through electrification of vehicles, it might make sense to focus on the types of vehicles in which the most energy consumption is concentrated. And one of the biggest, nastiest (and loudest) such vehicles – offering the greatest potential for improvement – is your unfriendly neighborhood garbage truck.
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"They are burning 14,000 gallons a year, and chewing up their brakes every three months. Doing on average of 130 miles day with 1,000 hard stops, drivers are going full throttle, full brakes 1,000 times a day."
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That powertrain upgrade includes battery packs that directly drive electric power to all four wheels, and a regenerative braking system so one doesn’t burn out brake pads as many as four times a year, as current trucks do. However, perhaps the most interesting element of the powertrain is the gas turbine range extender generator. Much like the Chevy Volt – which uses a gas engine to supplement the initial battery range – the Wrightspeed system uses a back-up engine as well.
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Wrightspeed’s CEO comments that the company is already out of the lab and has been on the road for the past 14 months with medium-duty FedEx delivery trucks. The technology has been proven and the company is converting 25 more delivery vehicles.
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(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
APPLE.? WHY NOT? The new IGarbageTruck!!
What reduction in noise pollution? The “sanitation workers” can bang garbage cans just as loudly as on diesel trucks.
That would make a great name for a band.
There's a tremendous amount of work - fully charged, the vehicle leaves the depot, performs the rounds picking up trash, and then likely makes a long trip to the dump or (if your city is into robbing you blind) to the waste transfer center where people get to pick through your garbage. (You did shred those documents, right?)
I think the biggest hurdle is that trip to the dump at the end of the rounds; that's most likely the longest drive with the vehicle fully loaded.
You get to haul around the batteries as well all day to fuel that trip as well. Not to mention all the high load lifts of trash bins and compaction cycles that the truck goes through on a normal day.
Fuel costs aren't there because they're drag racing the vehicles down your street, but because of all the various mechanical systems on the truck.
I can certainly see the attraction in this technology, but honestly, I can't see it working without a battery swap to handle the dump run.
And ultimately, the really interesting questions that need to be answered: in most areas of the country, our electric grid is at or near capacity - where will the infrastructure upgrade come from to deliver the power to handle these trucks, and is it fair to transfer the pollution from those who enjoy the services to those who happen to live downwind of the power plants?
That's what I was thinking too. The power to drive that large of a truck, which gains weight with every curbside stop... plus run the compactor. It would require a very large battery pack.
Consider that half the weight, and a good part of the volume of the two seater Tesla, consists of its battery pack.
It does not make sense to me for a heavy duty vehicle like a garbage truck. With all that battery, there wouldn't be much room left for job... which is collecting garbage.
Might work for smaller vehicles with lighter, less bulky loads like the USPS delivery jeeps. Even there, they would probably only work in areas with few hills and no really cold weather to drain the batteries.
Battery technology is just not there to make electric vehicles practical for most applications.
There needs to be some fundamental battery technology breakthrough before electric vehicles can become commonplace and an economic alternative to the trusty old internal combustion engine.
The constant stop start make this a good fit for electric drive and regenatrive braking. But the energy requriments for a working day will need that gas engine to keep the batteries up through the working day.
Because all your tax money is going to feeding all the benefits for current and former employees, since almost every city loves to make promises about benefits without paying the entire cost out of the existing budget? There's no money for a massive fleet change over, especially since so many cities went and changed over to LNG systems in the recent past.
Cold weather? The units I’ve seen have battery warmers (pads that look like heating pads) that turn on around 55 F.
Severe thunderstorms? Haven’t asked or investigated.
Still not sold on the concept, however, until range/battery issues are improved significantly.
Of course, if it helps me get dates, I am all over it. But EVs just don’t fill that bill.
Only in the afternoon. There is a massive amount of unused generating capacity at night when most electric vehicles are charged. I'm not sure what the schedule will be for these garbage trucks, but regardless, there are only so many garbage trucks per capita.
I’ve used the stationary compactors found at big box stores, malls, etc with the 30 yard enclosed container on them. Those suckers have 10 hp electric motor on them just to compact the load. Most curb side trucks in my area also have the hydraulic arm to lift and dump the barrel at each stop. add thousands of pounds of trash and that backup generator will be doing most of the charging.
Yeah, I’m thinking it would probably take two or more tons of batteries to make a reasonable run.
And the hydraulic noise would still be there. Which ( I now remember) is the noise that woke me in my city-living days.
Maybe a hybrid would be feasible.
With goats to ‘compact ‘the trash...
My cousin is friends with a guy who runs tour buses in the towns around the Smoky Mountains NP and he looked into using EVs for his vehicles. The killer was the hill-climbing problem. That just kills the electrics. They ended up going with CNG, given the cost of diesel at the time.
Quiet. Not good, really.
Morning walkers and joggers and bicyclists and kids walking to school, all with plugs in their ears will be run over flat.
No to mention that dogs will lose the entertainment of anticipating and chasing them.
I thought Mooch Obama outlawed all that fried stuff?
or the cafeteria, i went to college in Chattanooga and they used to put the meat in a pan fill it with grease and bake them in the oven. We used to use napkins to sop it off the meat. I’m not sure how often they reused the grease but they probably could have powered every vehicle in Chat with the grease they used.
LNG is good also..I am just tired of hearing all these nature huggers _itching about fossil fuels..wonder what % of our governmental body actually need diesel/gas vehicles for non-emergency use?
Ever see her A$$??? Fry outlawed...LMAO!!!!
Have you been following all the news on Apple and it manufacturing an electric car?
Swordmaker runs the Apple list, of which a goodly number of articles have been about that.
There are lots of socialist Provinces and socialist (read Democrat) States and cities that timeout buses after 5 years. After all it’s only the taxpayers money, so who cares! (I wish it were only </sarc>)
Not outlawed for her, outlawed for the school youts.
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