[HN Gopher] NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks ...
___________________________________________________________________
NYC officials say they can't find EV garbage trucks powerful enough
to plow snow
Author : IronWolve
Score : 114 points
Date : 2023-01-04 16:25 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gothamist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gothamist.com)
| mariodiana wrote:
| Anyone else remember learning about the "Five Year Plans" of the
| old Soviet Union?
| xsmasher wrote:
| What's the similarity? They're both "plans?"
| whataboutismst wrote:
| Yes and, unfortunately, conversation around these issues always
| falls into the Communism vs. Capatalism line of debate rather
| than ossification of systems consolidation of power - the far
| more impactful topic.
| formvoltron wrote:
| wires over the streets. Even places like Budapest have this.
| jollyllama wrote:
| TIL some trash trucks are also snowplows in NYC
| https://www.trailer-bodybuilders.com/archive/article/2172888...
| kcb wrote:
| Yea, DSNY sanitation workers also love snow storms as it means
| big overtime pay.
| nine_k wrote:
| Snow is a rare enough problem in NYC (1-2 weeks in a year), and
| having a whole fleet of dedicated snow-removing machines is not
| reasonable.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| As long as these part of the fleet are seen as a justifiable
| exemption, they can still deploy EV wherever possible. It's not a
| defeat in itself, just that the current technology still needs to
| figure out some shortfalls.
| entwife wrote:
| Canada doesn't like the snowplow-garbagetruck hybrid, either.
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/snow-plow-garbage-truc...
| "Garbage truck turned snow plow gets mixed review from city
| staff; Snow plow-garbage truck hybrid did not perform as well as
| dedicated snow removal machines"
| iblis23 wrote:
| [flagged]
| markstos wrote:
| The article says other cities use smaller vehicles for snow
| removal, so try that.
|
| In Canada there's been some recent success using an electric
| cargo bike as snow plow.
|
| I'm not suggesting that's right for New York, but maybe somthing
| a lot lighter than a garbage truck could work!
|
| https://electrek.co/2022/12/25/diy-e-bike-snow-plow/
| fatnoah wrote:
| I don't think the article's comparison with Denver is
| particularly fair. Looking at Denver's municipal website shows
| that they have a main fleet of 70 large plowers, and a smaller
| fleet of 26 4x4 plows which are used to create paths for
| residential streets as a smaller plow isn't really suitable for
| clearing large avenues and highways. Secondly, and perhaps more
| importantly, is the type of snow that falls in Denver. As a
| high altitude, inland location, Denver's snow is mostly dry and
| fluffy, while an East Coast city like New York is often on the
| edge of some rain/snow border and wet and/or slushy snow is far
| more common (and far, far, far heavier).
| hourago wrote:
| The "Elektromote", the world's first trolleybus,[6] in Berlin,
| Germany, 1882. Maybe New York is lacking the infrastructure, but
| the technology has existed for a long time. A trolleybus may be
| expensive to implement in rural areas but in the biggest city in
| the USA it should be quite cost effective.
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromote
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus
| twobitshifter wrote:
| I don't think a street plowing operation would work best on
| overhead. When you're plowing the trolley pole would likely
| dewire.
|
| The answer to me is just living without being able to plow for
| 12 hours straight charge up in between, and buy some more
| trucks or battery packs to run shifts. Just ask if diesel plow
| trucks didn't exist - what would you do?
| MAGZine wrote:
| few cities have ALL streets electrified. usually just main
| corridors where buses will operate.
|
| These buses usually have some battery, but not a lot, and
| coming on and off the wires is often a manual procedure.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| You don't need all streets electrified, just enough to keep
| the vehicles charged.
| kkfx wrote:
| That's a nice point for some aspects: we have (had) all over
| the world trolleybus of various kinds, those on rails have some
| co-existence with cars and asphalts issues (like slippery
| passages for bikes, complex ops when the asphalt need to be re-
| do etc) but beside that have worked HYPER well for decades.
| Those on tires have proven to be full of issues to a point most
| who have had them have given up.
|
| I see so far no feasibility study about:
|
| - converting highways to rails with dual-usage vehicles (all
| vehicles, cars and trucks banning bikes) so vehicles can run
| normally on road but for just the long range usage they run
| full electric form grid, converting them to wheels only for
| going out or maneuvering on a faulty vehicles;
|
| - crafting a urban rail network again at least for some
| "important traversing roads".
|
| Perhaps the result would be negative anyway, but at least a
| broad simulation with public discussion, some eventual
| experiment etc...
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Trolley rails seem carefully designed to be deathtraps for
| bicycles, as if someone looked up bicycle wheel widths and
| depths, grip on varius surfaces, etc., then tested iteration
| to come up with the rails. Still, if it reduces carbon
| output, I'm all for it.
| ilamont wrote:
| I was thinking about vehicles that can't switch to electric
| power. The tech's not there yet, and may never be.
|
| Cargo ships. Jumbo jets. Military aircraft. Specialized
| industrial vehicles, such as those used for mines.
|
| Unless these use cases are made obsolete (possible, such as
| military) society will depend on fossil fuels for many decades to
| come.
| d_runs_far wrote:
| These guys seem to have a niche: hauling logs off of mountains.
| Regenerative braking on the way down when heavy; using a Diesel
| engine as a generator in the truck's engine bay.
| https://www.edisonmotors.ca/trucks
| bsder wrote:
| > Specialized industrial vehicles, such as those used for
| mines.
|
| A lot of industrial vehicles that need high torque at low speed
| are effectively turbodiesel generators driving eletric motors
| already.
|
| Replacing such a setup with a battery is a lot easier that a
| full blown ICE vehicle.
| carry_bit wrote:
| Not fossil fuels, but rather hydrocarbon fuels. You can
| technically synthesize fuel for those use cases in a carbon-
| neutral manner.
| racnid wrote:
| Lots of mine & industrial vehicles are electrified. In
| underground mining it's attractive because the vehicle is in a
| very confined space (easy to run cables to) and it's doubly
| attractive because of the emissions issue (venting
| underground). It can make sense for above ground too. But for
| aircraft and ships you're likely correct.
| ilamont wrote:
| I was thinking more of the giant open-pit mining excavators
| and trucks. However, I see that people are attempting to
| bring EVs to this market:
|
| _The mining industry is in a full swing transition towards a
| low environmental impact mode of operation, and its key
| players are working to phase out diesel vehicles, which are
| responsible for significant greenhouse gas emissions and
| generate high operating costs. Currently, there are no
| electric-powered heavy-duty trucks on the market that meet
| the difficult operational and climate needs of open-pit
| mines. Faced with the industry's new needs, IVI, Propulsion
| and the NRC brought together select partners to make the
| first-ever electric heavy-duty vehicle for the mining sector.
|
| To ensure the success of this major project, Fournier et
| Fils, a recognized operator in the mining sector, will
| provide the project with a Western Star 6900XD truck with a
| 40-ton loading capacity, as well as its technical experts,
| who will assist the electrification experts in converting the
| truck to accommodate the new components. The motorization
| aspects will be developed by Dana TM4, a world leader in
| electric motors._
|
| https://www.danatm4.com/news-events/a-first-for-canadas-
| open...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Trucking fuel into remote sites is tedious, expensive and
| risky.
| entwife wrote:
| What is needed is a means for removing weight from the garbage-
| collection apparatus when adding a front-end snowplow.
| lallysingh wrote:
| Or swapping for an aux battery pack. I'm not sure the plow
| weight is a big issue, compared to the wet snow. Also I'm
| assuming they're not picking up garbage at the same time.
| legitster wrote:
| Some more context from an older article:
| https://www.fleetowner.com/operations/article/21694046/nyc-s...
|
| > Because of the requirement that it fuel the entire fleet within
| an hour in the event of a snow emergency, natural gas hasn't
| proved practical especially since CNG fueling stations require
| too much space in such a dense city, according to Commissioner
| Garcia. Right now the fleet is about to undertake initial testing
| with renewable diesel, which is not only better in terms of
| greenhouse gas emissions, but can be used as a complete
| replacement for diesel, not just as a 5 to 20% blend.
|
| So they already forwent CNG (unlike most municipalities) because
| of this requirement.
| sh1mmer wrote:
| 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 with replacements?
|
| Edit: Googling suggests that garbage trucks get 3mpg on average,
| with a 70-90 gallon tank and go 25k mi/yr on average (80mi/day
| 6-day week) so one tank would cover a whole day.
|
| 3mpg is awful though which does seem to support electrification
| being a good plan for this use case.
| newsclues wrote:
| 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?
| gumby wrote:
| This is a non-issue. Like any other technology, EVs will (do) get
| traction where they provide a significant advantage, and then as
| the tech matures they will eat away at the rest of the problem
| space.
|
| One of the few business books worth reading, the Innovator's
| Dilemma, is all about this, and is supposedly beloved in the tech
| business. It's where "disruption" entered marketing discussion.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| Wouldn't Tesla's Semi truck fit the bill in terms of power? If
| so, could the motor and batteries used in the Semi theoretically
| power an EV garbage truck for long enough to plow snow for more
| than the 4 hours they state they're currently seeing?
| redox99 wrote:
| Probably yes. More so, it charges to 70% in 30 minutes, so
| stopping twice to charge shouldn't be a big deal either.
| tomohawk wrote:
| This application screams for diesel hydraulic hybrids.
| MR4D wrote:
| Maybe they should just heat the streets instead.
|
| Yeah, I know, climate change. Still, kindof a neat idea if we
| could figure it out.
| unregistereddev wrote:
| Heated driveways (and heated sidewalks) are a real thing for
| wealthy homeowners who do not want to clear snow. It is a neat
| idea, but I also find it an appalling waste of resources.
|
| https://www.bobvila.com/articles/heated-driveway/
| nashashmi wrote:
| Small problems. They should have several battery rotation
| stations spread out everywhere.
|
| I wonder if their trucks can do 8 hours of driving without
| refueling?
| sfe22 wrote:
| If it were such an easy problem, why don't you fix it? Can
| become rich as well.
| nashashmi wrote:
| This is a timing and operations issue. In 17 years, better
| crafted solutions will appear. Any fix right now would only
| last five years.
|
| The problem is more optimized for manufacturers.
| ars wrote:
| So you think they should buy triple the number of battery packs
| they actually need, in order to support snow plowing 3 or 4
| times a year?
|
| Oh, and don't forget creating fully staffed battery depots
| scattered around the already very full city?
| jbj wrote:
| I hope they will be as creative as in Michigan once they find a
| machine powerful enough:
| https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/travel/safety/road-users/winte...
| wolverine876 wrote:
| It's discussed elsewhere in the thread, but overehead wires seem
| appealing:
|
| * They solve the power availability problem
|
| * They reduce the need for batteries, reducing cost and waste
| from manufacturing and disposal.
|
| * They could be used for electrifying other vehicles like buses
|
| * Their ROI seems especially high in dense cities, especially NY:
| One overhead wire serves all the traffic on the road below. Plus,
| dense cities like NY already have infrastructure citywide, and
| experience servicing it.
|
| * What if we could provide power to electric cars in NYC. That
| could be transformative. I don't know that electric wires would
| be the best form for that, or how it could be done (is there a
| safe way to embed something in the ground?).
|
| * Some point out that the garbage trucks need to cover almost
| every street in the city. The power supply doesn't have to do
| that; it only has to be available enough to charge the vehicles
| sufficietly to plow/pickup on the side street and return to the
| main road.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| We're already electrifying bus depots [1]. Trolley lines may
| work on major thoroughfares, but they're a bit of an eye sore.
|
| [1] https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2021/06/03/the-mtas-new-
| electric...
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I agree about the eyesore. In one city I was in, I noticed
| that as I moved from the poor to the rich neighborhood, all
| the power line (not trolly lines) were on poles in the former
| and buried in the latter; the difference was remarkable.
|
| I wonder if something can be embedded in the street.
| Obviously, a subway-style third rail would be a bad idea!
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Unsure how Seattle solves this, but it also complicates
| tree maintenance.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| They work for buses because buses follow set routes. There
| aren't overhead lines running through every single street. By
| comparison, garbage trucks do have to patrol essentially every
| street. Putting overhead lines through every street may be more
| expensive than batteries.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| What do you think of my last point (in the GP)?
| Manuel_D wrote:
| It's largely irrelevant. Having walked around Manhattan and
| seeing people leaving trash out, garbage trucks are going
| to be overwhelmingly active on side streets and not the
| major thoroughfares. The potential charging time gained
| from overhead lines will be minimal. Furthermore, most
| garbage trucks have mechanisms to load and unload garbage
| which would prevent them from mounting trolley poles.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Good point about the side streets, but you could still
| electrify where the trucks drive most often and not
| everything.
|
| The trolley poles could be mounted to the cab, it would
| seem.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| The issue is that garbage trucks drive serve each street
| equally often, for the most part. There's no streets
| where garbage trucks drive more often. It's not the
| situation that 20% of streets generate 80% of garbage
| that needs to be picked up [1]. It's block after block of
| townhomes and mid-rise apartments that are leaving out
| trash bags. Overhead lines inherently lend themselves to
| consolidated routes, but garbage disposal is the polar
| opposite of that.
|
| 1. High rise apartments generate a lot more trash, but
| they already have bulk garbage disposal systems and thus
| aren't part of the problem of picking up garbage bags off
| the street.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > It's not the situation that 20% of streets generate 80%
| of garbage that needs to be picked up
|
| Not that number exactly, but many streets or blocks have
| no trash - office buidings, the highrise apts you
| mention, parks, highways, etc. And it's time, not
| distance that matters - you can charge the trucks where
| they spend the most time. My point is that you don't need
| 100% coverage or likely near that.
|
| A drawback is that garbage pickup needs probably don't
| align with bus, snow plowing, or other needs, so ROI is
| lower for those wires.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Sure, much of Midtown doesn't have street trash pickup
| because skyscrapers have alternative garbage disposal
| infrastructure. The fact that 20% of streets _don 't_
| produce trash doesn't alter the fact that the remaining
| 80% of streets have largely uniform trash distribution.
| There's no stretches of road where garbage trucks are
| spending significantly more time than others.
|
| The fact that it's time, not distance, that matters makes
| matters event worse: garbage trucks will spend a brief
| period of time on a major thoroughfare to get to their
| trash pickup zone, but then spend hours and and hours
| working through block and after block of residential and
| low density (for NYC) neighborhoods with no overlap
| between truck routes. There are no roads where you can
| deploy power lines that will charge garbage trucks for
| any significant stretch of time. The only place where
| garbage trucks _do_ spend long stretches of time is the
| depot: and you just need normal EV charges there. The
| low-density, distributed nature of garbage pickup
| fundamentally is at odds with overhead lines.
| rcme wrote:
| [dead]
| cdchn wrote:
| I thought I considered myself pretty well traveled but I've never
| seen a garbage truck plowing snow.
| ecshafer wrote:
| 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 well. There could be some solid
| engineering reasons for this, but I suspect that coolness is a
| big factor.
| fencepost wrote:
| 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 trucks it's probably
| not a big deal to make sure they have adequate battery
| capacity.
|
| Plow trucks have a completely different use model where they're
| run at speed for long periods and one day of plowing could have
| the same distance traveled as weeks of trash collection.
| Hybrids would likely be an improvement in efficiency but the
| same way they do for other trucks - batteries support high
| demand periods while the generator is fine for the lower
| sustained loads.
|
| Edit: a drawback of the smaller fleet for snow management is
| that garbage trucks aren't as well suited for salt/sand/deicer
| distribution. Nobody designs their garbage trucks to spray. I
| hope.
|
| Edit2: garbage trucks also have a lot of additional mechanical
| systems that are probably already electrical, so among other
| things the ICE versions likely have an oversized alternator to
| power that.
| pimlottc wrote:
| It's also great for noise reduction, particular since they
| often run in the mornings.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > so EVs eliminate idling.
|
| The vehicle, when stopped, has other functions to perform. It
| has hydraulic lifters and compactors that need quite a bit of
| power to operate. It's a working platform, not a simple
| garbage transportation mechanism.
|
| Even to the extent is isn't for transportation, see how far
| away the dump is from your home. That distance has to be
| covered twice at least once a day, and possibly as much as 3
| times per day.. and during one of those legs the truck is
| fully loaded with possibly up to as much as 20,000lbs of
| trash.
|
| Finally, they have to operate in all conditions, in both very
| low and very high temperatures. The logistics of this aren't
| as simple as it would be for a standard vehicle.
| Symbiote wrote:
| In New York City, do the garbage trucks drive a long
| distance to unload their waste?
|
| In much of London, they drive a relatively short distance
| to offload the waste. Some is handled locally (e.g.
| composting food and garden waste). The rest is taken the
| much longer distance by barge or rail.
|
| Barge: https://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/news/2019-news/june-20
| 19/thame...
|
| Rail: https://westlondonwaste.gov.uk/where-your-waste-goes
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| As an industrial EE dealing with hydraulics of much larger
| scales than those on a garbage truck, those other functions
| do not require significant power to operate when compared
| to actually accelerating the vehicle and cargo up to speed
| (and then slamming on the brakes/regen again for the next
| stop).
|
| The engines in diesel garbage trucks often run at idle when
| those hydraulics are working, lifting a 100 kg residential
| can or a 1-ton dumpster through a few meters of motion is
| not noticeable to a 350 HP diesel, accelerating 30 tons of
| truck and trash in the same amount of time is why they're
| equipped with so much more engine power.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Somewhere as densely populated as NY is surely best served
| by those rubbish bins that empty into a trash vacuum
| tunnel.
|
| Massive upfront cost (infrastructure and NY seems to be a
| bit fraught) and also likely expensive to run, but with
| high population density it's got to be better.
|
| However this would then have a fleet of snow trucks that
| weren't used 99% of the time, as the rubbish was mostly
| sorted.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_vacuum_collection
| StrictDabbler wrote:
| * * *
| to11mtm wrote:
| 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] - The Maverick -does- do a decent job IMO of showing
| what's possible with a small purpose-built hybrid truck or
| truck-like thing; However manufacturers that make bigger EVs
| are likely reluctant to build a truly 'minimum viable
| product', as it will bite into fleet sales of larger
| EV/Hybrids introduced.
|
| [3] - Recently, we had sustained sub 10F temps. My overall
| mileage went from 35-42MPG to 25-30MPG.
| makestuff wrote:
| Seems like plug in hybrid is the best approach with current
| tech. Battery in the neighborhoods, and gas powered when you
| are hauling it back to the landfill.
| fencepost wrote:
| Maybe. Others have talked about the problems with hybrids
| and they might not make as much sense as simply expanding
| either the fleet as a whole or the parts of the fleet used
| for plowing. Also worth considering the city's whole
| vehicle fleet - use the garbage trucks as appropriate for
| mass response, but also use dump trucks, etc from public
| works.
|
| Eventually there may also be more options with battery
| swapping - that's a lot more feasible with a fleet within a
| relatively small geographic region.
| [deleted]
| WWLink wrote:
| I agree, what we need is to make them blow the blackest black
| diesel smoke possible.
| brink wrote:
| This isn't a one dimensional problem where diesel smoke is
| the only factor at play.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| This, This, This.
|
| We think "Well gas cars transport their own energy source, so
| electric cars must too" and that will probably be one of the
| things future generations laugh at us for (in the same way
| older generations thought flapping wing costumes could generate
| heavier-than-air flight).
|
| Hydrocarbons are an _extreme_ outlier in terms of energy
| density (vs. weight) and the fact that we are trying to
| replicate that model with _other_ non-outlier materials is
| crazy.
|
| Cars travel on _roads_ almost exclusively. In the US, 90%+
| passenger miles are on roads that already have _some_ amount of
| power infrastructure (lightposts) and if we just made it so
| that our vehicles could plug into electricity at all points of
| their journey, then EVs are basically solved.
|
| The sad part of Elon being so successful is that all he does is
| see places where we used to do things well (we electrified the
| whole country very quickly, built an advanced space program in
| 2-3 decades, etc.), notices we lack the will to keep doing
| those things (even I understand the overhead wires thing is a
| moonshot), and comes up with the pragmatic "OK but not really
| great" solution.
|
| Seriously, if you had said in 1960 "the richest man in 2020
| will focus on cars, low-earth-orbit rockets, and tunnel boring
| machines" people would be extremely bummed by the lack of
| progress.
| trog wrote:
| > and if we just made it so that our vehicles could plug into
| electricity at all points of their journey, then EVs are
| basically solved.
|
| One thing I have often wondered is how often they'd need
| access to electricity if they had a small battery to cover
| for the times they're not connected.
|
| i.e., do they need to be connected at /all/ points of their
| journey? Or just often enough that they can get enough of a
| charge to make it to the next point? e.g. if there was
| induction charging at stop signs or traffic lights, would
| that be enough for a majority of trips?
|
| This seems like it should just be a bit of a game of
| statistical coverage of charging points, time spent at them,
| speed of charging, and so on.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Cars travel on roads almost exclusively. In the US, 90%+
| passenger miles are on roads that already have some amount of
| power infrastructure (lightposts) and if we just made it so
| that our vehicles could plug into electricity at all points
| of their journey, then EVs are basically solved.
|
| So, your solution for EVs is overheard wires or third rails
| for every lane of every roadway?
| RC_ITR wrote:
| >So, your solution for EVs is overheard wires
|
| I think that is a much more solvable problem than charging
| and batteries yes.
|
| Do I think it will happen in my lifetime? No. But there's a
| reason that we don't have battery-powered trains, and it's
| not like in 2022, cars are that much more "off-road" than
| trains are "off-track"
| SllX wrote:
| The power lines that trolleybuses use don't cover an entire
| city. They're only installed on the routes the buses are
| scheduled to run on, and only for the parts of the streets
| buses will use. They're like train tracks in that way, but
| hanging in the air instead of embedded in the ground.
|
| Garbage truck fleets are expected to cover every street and
| every block in their service area which adds up to more of a
| city than bus services cover since they don't stop on every
| block at every house and building. The lines also require
| maintenance and you also need to train operators to re-
| establish the connections not _if_ they drop but _when_ they
| drop. Doesn't seem worth it to me, at least not for New York.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| In 1875, Philadelphia had electric street car lines going
| through every numbered street in the city, and through every
| cross street in central Philly[1].
|
| [1] https://i.redd.it/zidqa2mbmav31.png
| jacquesm wrote:
| They are also a maintenance headache, especially in icy
| conditions.
| tapoxi wrote:
| Here in Massachusetts we just removed our streetcar power lines
| (MBTA 71 and 73 trolleybus) because the wires needed to be
| removed during construction. This might be a logistical issue
| for NYC.
|
| https://www.mbta.com/news/2022-01-27/beginning-march-2022-mb...
| andbberger wrote:
| one of the worst decisions the MBTA has ever made. battery
| buses are inferior to trolleybuses in pretty much every
| scenario, but especially winter. the battery buses they're
| replacing the trolleybuses with have diesel heaters to keep
| the batteries warm.
| samspenc wrote:
| Yeah having street car power lines can be a nightmare in
| densely crowded cities with a lot of pedestrian traffic and
| tightly packed buildings. It would be a nightmare to
| implement in a place like New York City, and I'm not
| surprised that cities that have them are slowly removing
| them.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I think they are a great solution
| electrically and for efficiency / sustainability, but require
| an enormous geographic footprint, central planning and a lot
| of overhead space which is difficult to find in dense cities.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > street car power lines can be a nightmare in densely
| crowded cities with a lot of pedestrian traffic and tightly
| packed buildings. It would be a nightmare to implement in a
| place like New York City
|
| They've been used in dense cities for generations. How hard
| can it be?
|
| > require an enormous geographic footprint
|
| What footprint is needed for additional overhead wires?
| lostlogin wrote:
| I wonder is it is more of less efficient for land use as
| they don't need fuelling and the associated land that
| uses, but do need a pair of lamp posts every 10m.
| bee_rider wrote:
| One point in favor of running these lines -- city already
| has lots of lamp posts.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| I don't think the reason that street cars lines were
| removed is because they're hard to implement, I think they
| were removed for political reasons.
| dendrite9 wrote:
| I remember looking into this a little bit and the conclusion
| seemed to be that for most garbage truck uses the range was not
| the limiting factor. Pickup time was more important, and
| batteries are attractive given that most garbage pickup is
| stop-pickup-start-drive a short distance then stop again. In
| Seattle I believe I saw the longest route was less than 70
| miles but I can't find a source. There was a purchase of
| battery garbage trucks with a range of 55 miles a few years
| ago. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/05/seattle-makes-
| history-w...
|
| Caternary lines have always seemed like a good solution but
| there must be a good reason they aren't more popular.
|
| Also, garbage collection in NYC seems to be a weird mishmash of
| rules and providers. Again there must be a historical reason
| but from the outside it has never made sense to me.
| https://www.propublica.org/article/trashed-inside-the-deadly...
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > Caternary lines have always seemed like a good solution but
| there must be a good reason they aren't more popular
|
| What reason?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Ugly, expensive, maintenance headache. What's not to
| like... They are however more environmentally friendly than
| diesel engines and it works well if you only have a few
| well trafficked routes. But you can't do this for a whole
| city, and garbage trucks and snowplows need to go into
| every street, not just the main boulevards.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Agreed on all points, though I notice everyone says they
| are so expensive and hard to maintain, but nobody cites
| anything (not a criticism - I have no idea myself).
|
| However, you don't need availability on every street,
| just enough to charge the vehicles sufficiently for the
| smaller streets.
| jacquesm wrote:
| 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 ICE bus just goes around the
| obstacle and continues.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| 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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I've been reading a bit more about it in the meantime:
| so, the trolley network in Arnhem is slowly diminishing
| in size, but it's still there and it will likely be there
| for quite a while to come. They are looking at ways to
| use a combination BEV / trolley system to allow the buses
| to recharge when they're on the line so they can depart
| from the route for longer stretches.
|
| The maneuvering in case of trouble situation is covered
| by a tiny diesel engine that can move the bus around to
| the point where it can reconnect to a working segment of
| the network.
|
| One problem with reducing the coverage is that it is
| relatively easy to take away the lines but the poles are
| in large chunks of concrete and not easy to remove at
| all.
| happyopossum wrote:
| The buses I'm familiar with that use overhead power lines
| don't use them exclusively - they have batteries or
| diesel for when they venture off the powered lines.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I wonder what they do when a bus runs out of power -
| towtrucks? Charging trucks?
| kibwen wrote:
| Extension cord into the nearest bodega? :P
| dendrite9 wrote:
| The only ones I have spent a lot of time looking at are
| in Seattle and at least they used to all be diesel and
| could hookup to the lines or lower them to run off the
| lines. For pure electric I assume they must tow them away
| but I don't know enough about the failure modes.
|
| This is a good chance to share a link to the guy with a
| Prius modified to run on the bus power in San Francisco:
| https://thebolditalic.com/hacked-prius-running-on-muni-
| power...
| jacquesm wrote:
| Interesting, I've seen them stuck more than once, I'll
| have to check up on what the deal is there, I walk by the
| depot every couple of days and I'm sure they'll be happy
| to talk about it.
| PLenz wrote:
| Manhattan used to have hundreds of miles of street level
| trolley - but mostly powered by underground center third rail
| because overhead wires just didn't work with the density of
| lines and equipment. When the system needed to be cleared
| after snowfalls they used horses and later ICE trucks to
| plow. See any book on the Third Avenue Railway system for
| details
| jeffbee wrote:
| NYC garbage trucks spend a very long time parked in front of
| the same building all night, crushing bags full of plastic
| coffee cups. Ask anyone who has ever tried to sleep in
| Manhattan. A completely reasonable solution that doesn't
| require a wholesale change in the way refuse is collected in
| that city would be to plug the truck in at the building where
| it is standing.
|
| That said, a wholesale change is what they need.
| jwagenet wrote:
| I'm very much interested in this underground system (I don't
| know if it is actually implemented):
| https://www.core77.com/posts/102208/Amsterdams-Smart-
| System-...
|
| It seems to me this sort of trash deposit system would
| greatly simplify trash collection.
| apendleton wrote:
| Roosevelt Island (which is a part of the Manhattan borough)
| actually has an underground, pneumatic trash collection
| system: https://untappedcities.com/2020/04/09/inside-
| roosevelt-islan... . I think it would be hard to retrofit
| such a thing onto the already-built-up parts of the city
| though.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > I think it would be hard to retrofit such a thing onto
| the already-built-up parts of the city though.
|
| It would be prohibitively expensive, because there's no
| master record of which pipes/wires/cables/etc. exist in
| any given location. It's very expensive to dig in
| Manhattan[0], because you basically have to dig carefully
| and see what's actually there, rather than having some
| knowledge of "the gas pipes are in this spot, so we can
| dig around them". So much of the infrastructure was
| installed before detailed record-keeping was standard
| practice.
|
| As far as trash collection in NYC, the main thing that
| needs to happen is containerized trash collection. Right
| now, trash bags are just left on the sidewalks 3-5 times
| per week for 12 or more hours at a time, creating an
| absolute buffet for rodents.
|
| [0] This actually applies to most of the city, but
| Manhattan is a combination of the oldest-built and most-
| densly-built infrastructure, so it's particularly
| expensive there.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| chitowneats wrote:
| 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.
| hericium wrote:
| It was always handled efficiently by the mafia guys in
| movies.
| jeffbee wrote:
| They also call it "the city that never sleeps" but they
| misleadingly omit the reason.
| chitowneats wrote:
| That reason being what? Cocaine?
|
| Edit: oh, you must mean noisy garbage trucks
| nickpp wrote:
| Garbage is a difficult issue everywhere. Part of the
| entropy problem of the universe...
| jaywalk wrote:
| I can't think of another major city where there are piles
| of garbage bags on the sidewalks everywhere.
| noselasd wrote:
| Tokyo ? Business there place their garbage bags out on
| the sidewalk in the evenings, garbage trucks scoop them
| up early in the morning.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| > I can't think of another major city where there are
| piles of garbage bags on the sidewalks everywhere.
|
| Other cities have alleyways.
| some_random wrote:
| Garbage is absolutely not as big of a problem as it is in
| NYC though. You don't get to blame the fact garbage
| collection is awful on entropy when other cities very
| visibly do not have the same issues.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Do you live there? It seems pretty effective IME.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Do you live there? It seems pretty effective IME.
|
| I live in NYC, and I'll go on the record stating that
| NYC's trash collection system is an absolute disaster,
| because the city has long-refused to use containerized
| trash collection (the way every other city in the
| developed world does), and instead tells people to dump
| trash bags on the sidewalk 3-5 times per week, where they
| sit for 12 hours at a time before being picked up.
|
| This is not an effective system at all. It exists only
| because elected officials have not wanted to give up a
| few free parking spaces every block in order to allow for
| containerized trash receptacles.
|
| Thankfully, there's a pilot program on one block in
| midtown Manhattan to "trial" containerized trash
| collection. It began a few weeks ago, and is scheduled to
| last one year. Hopefully that will be followed by a wider
| rollout.
| jrockway wrote:
| HN's take on NYC is very confusing. Everyone has
| "obvious" answers to problems that residents don't even
| consider problematic, and oh by the way, they've never
| left their town of 600 people.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I remember a debate here where people were claiming how
| lawless NYC was for allowing people and services to
| double-park to load/unload. They should park in a loading
| zone!
|
| You must recognize the general GOP-led campaign that
| democratic-run places like NYC and CA are nightmares. It
| was Trump's theme for the 2020 GOP convention, but was
| overshadowed by Coronavirus. I think it spreads here too.
| NYC (and CA) need to take it on and remind people what
| makes them so fantastic.
| tobsterius wrote:
| For what it's worth, NYC has been designating some
| parking spots on city blocks in largely residential areas
| for local deliveries, so UPS/Amazon/FedEx trucks don't
| have to double park and hold up traffic. I'm sure it was
| due to the pandemic, where online ordering became a
| lifeline for many.
| edgyquant wrote:
| We also should write off real criticism as a "GOP"
| campaign. I live in one of their favorite cities to
| attack (not NYC) and they're close to spot on
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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; high, and your trash disappears down a
| building chute. It's only we who live in the middle density
| who have to haul garbage to the basement and hear the
| beeping trucks at night. Even then, it's clean and works.
| walrus01 wrote:
| > The status quo is sanitary and efficient.
|
| Are we talking about the same NYC? Visit Manhattan in mid
| July/August. Bags of garbage leaking juices and oil out
| onto the street into a huge greasy spot where the
| designated collection spot is near the curb. The whole
| city smells like a toaster oven roasted ballsack.
|
| Then combine that with all the cumulative liters of urine
| per day from dogs and humans all throughout the city.
| MrMan wrote:
| What are you talking about
| burkaman wrote:
| Doesn't basically every city call itself the greatest city
| on earth?
| chitowneats wrote:
| Not like NYC. Not even close. At least, I've never
| visited or lived in one that rivaled it.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I've never heard Red Deer, Alberta make that claim.
| chitowneats wrote:
| You don't even hear people from LA or SF boast the way
| they do in New Yawk.
| edgyquant wrote:
| You definitely hear people from LA say this
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _don 't even hear people from LA or SF boast the way
| they do in New Yawk_
|
| Every borough except Staten Island is larger than San
| Francisco [1][2]. Manhattan together with Queens _or_
| Brooklyn is bigger than LA, the second-largest city in
| America. (Staten Island is about the size of Raleigh or
| Atlanta.)
|
| New York solves problems at a scale no other American
| city comes close to imagining.
|
| [1] https://www.nyc.gov/site/planning/planning-level/nyc-
| populat...
|
| [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States
| _cities...
| Manuel_D wrote:
| The LA municipal boundary is a small sliver of what
| people broadly call "Los Angeles. Here's Manhattan
| projected over the LA metro:
| https://i.imgur.com/ff7Vs1k.jpeg
| kelnos wrote:
| What does the size of the city have to do with it? When
| thinking about "greatest city", I don't think "solving
| problems at scale" is one of my criteria.
|
| I love visiting Manhattan and Brooklyn, but frankly have
| a hard time imagining living there. And I live in SF,
| which is far from being an ideal city.
| chitowneats wrote:
| This is exactly what I mean. You guys have no idea how
| silly you sound everywhere else.
|
| I also noticed your sleight of hand. "Greatest city in
| the world" includes Tokyo, Paris, Seoul. All far superior
| to NYC in almost every way, with similar issues of scale.
| edgyquant wrote:
| Sounds to be like it's you just having an issue with NYC
| novok wrote:
| They can sacrifice street parking spots systematically
| throughout the city for garbage dumpsters, as many others
| have suggested, but it's politically untenable to do so
| because americans love their cars, even in NYC.
|
| Another politically untenable solution is to do what Taiwan
| does and force people to put out their garbage in very
| tight time windows and otherwise store it privately in
| their houses and businesses, but that is a unproductive use
| of human time on net.
| echlebek wrote:
| The reality is that most other major cities have garbage
| collection figured out in a better way. For instance in
| my city, garbage is kept in a dedicated garage area in
| each apartment building, and on a scheduled day, it's
| picked up either right in the building or in the alley
| after the caretaker moves the dumpsters there. The fact
| that this is considered politically untenable in New York
| is frankly insane, glad I don't live there.
| ars wrote:
| > in a dedicated garage area in each apartment building
|
| NY has a lot of row houses, there's no room for a
| dedicated garbage area. And the alleys are not wide
| enough for a garbage truck.
|
| Before criticizing a place, at least understand it first.
| grumple wrote:
| As someone from a dense city with generally smaller roads
| than NYC (Philly), I think that's untrue. If NYC wanted
| to do it, it could be done. In Philly, trucks make it
| down alleys where the roadway is half the size of the
| truck. Or they wheel the dumpsters down the alley to the
| corner. That doesn't mean every alley is suitable, but
| you can put the dumpster on the main road where you put
| the trash, or do as our European friends suggest.
| novok wrote:
| There are barely if any alleys in most of NYC.
| brnt wrote:
| 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).
| specialp wrote:
| 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 in many areas they have to take the snow and dump
| it in the East River.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > 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.
| simmonmt wrote:
| 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 underground containers. Yes they
| could reduce the amount of garbage generated. But both
| are massive projects far beyond "why can't they just".
| [deleted]
| jeffbee wrote:
| This is also how they do it in Zurich. You walk your
| garbage down to the corner. Recycling is the same way.
| The only thing that gets picked up from houses is paper
| and cardboard.
|
| In NYC, in very dense areas like of Manhattan, I would
| expect it would make sense to put a container in the
| bottom of every building, but in rowhouse areas it is
| reasonable to expect the occupants to walk down to the
| corner.
|
| The main thing is like so many other aspects of American
| life we have no domestic examples of best practices. You
| have to visit foreign cities and pay attention, or invite
| their experts to come teach your city.
| j33zusjuice wrote:
| And neither of those things happen in the USA. We kicked
| England out like 250 years ago, and our general belief is
| that Europe hasn't had a good idea since they chose to
| colonize the Americas. Reasonable people think this is
| stupid, but we have a lot of unreasonable people here.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > NY has a lot of row houses, there's no room for a
| dedicated garbage area
|
| Most buildings in NYC already have a dedicated garbage
| area. The issue is that there isn't a dedicated spot for
| _pickup_.
|
| That's a solvable problem: put containerized trash
| receptacles on the street, so the superintendent can put
| them in the containers, instead of dropping them directly
| on the sidewalk (which is what they currently do).
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| >For instance in my city, garbage is kept in a dedicated
| garage area in each apartment building
|
| Most apartment buildings in NYC don't have garages.
| ars wrote:
| It's not the parking spots - residents have zero interest
| in walking to the end of their block with garbage.
|
| If they tried it people would just leave their garbage on
| the street. Have you been in NY? There's garbage
| everywhere.
| Reubachi wrote:
| Personally I have no idea what you're talking
| about...have visited the city many many times for work
| from bronx to manhattan, and come from a much "dirtier"
| city.
|
| If you think there's garbage everywhere in NYC, I advise
| you to never visit most European capitals, and especially
| not the asian subcontinent. Which is not to shame these
| places, but more so to say that NYC is doing OK.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > It's not the parking spots - residents have zero
| interest in walking to the end of their block with
| garbage.
|
| Nobody would have to do that. They'd have to walk an
| extra 10 ft from the front of their building to the curb.
| Unless they live in a multifamily building (which is most
| of the city), in which case the building superintendent
| would do that.
|
| > Have you been in NY? There's garbage everywhere.
|
| Because that's the city-sanctioned way for
| ars wrote:
| > They'd have to walk an extra 10 ft from the front of
| their building to the curb.
|
| I mentioned in another post it's mostly row houses,
| sometimes with the 1st and 2nd floor separate living
| areas. Not huge apartments - you can't put a dumpster in
| front of every house.
|
| The dumpster would go at the end of the block, no one
| will support walking that far with their garbage. Not
| when they are used to a different way.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > I mentioned in another post it's mostly row houses
|
| This is incorrect. That does not describe the majority of
| housing units in NYC.
|
| > The dumpster would go at the end of the block, no one
| will support walking that far with their garbage. Not
| when they are used to a different way.
|
| I don't know why you're so confidently making this claim,
| because that's not what's being proposed or being done.
| There already is a pilot program for containerized trash
| collection, and - surprise - there's not just one
| container per block.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Philadelphia used to have electric street car lines that ran
| down almost every street[1].
|
| [1] https://i.redd.it/zidqa2mbmav31.png
| heavyset_go wrote:
| EVs in a place as dense as NYC seems like a risk. Battery fires
| can burn for hours and entire blocks might need to be closed off
| and evacuated due to the risk of battery explosions.
|
| It gets even more complicated when EV fires happen in places like
| garages under buildings, because that makes it hard for fire
| fighters to dump the 40,000+ gallons of water needed to keep
| battery fires cool enough that they don't explode.
| tempestn wrote:
| That small risk seems better to me in a densely populated area
| than burning fuels known to cause harmful fumes in their
| standard operation.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| You're mistaken if you think I believe that gas powered
| vehicles should be operated in Manhattan at all.
| legitster wrote:
| > " 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.
| kkfx wrote:
| Because their small batteries being too much stressed do not
| last longer and in the end you run on ICE with the extra weight
| of battery, inverters and powertrain...
|
| Another tempted but so far not promising was the hybrid-series
| EVs (like ships, with electrical engine powered by a generator)
| so far Nissan have tempted again, but honestly sound to be a
| failure...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I don't understand it either. People seem to fanatically pursue
| and defend purity. Gas or electric. Hybrid is too complicated.
| treis wrote:
| 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.
| gowings97 wrote:
| "it's a more complex & expensive solution than picking one or
| the other."
|
| Not for NMC batteries, which continue to go up in price (so
| much for the downward EV battery price trend EV promoters
| promised would materialize with the economies of scale).
|
| And LFP batteries don't have the necessary performance
| characteristics for high load applications.
|
| The great EV brownout of 2023 has arrived.
| dekhn wrote:
| Yes! I love my plug-in hybrid (Toyota RAV4 Prime). It gets
| about 40 miles on battery and then switches to gas. I've
| managed to drive 9000 miles on 3 tanks of gas (with a much
| larger energy bill, of course!) and I always have the
| confidence I could go on a long drive without depending on
| either slow, busy, or rare charging stations. I now even drive
| more slowly to maximize my EV range.
| illegalsmile wrote:
| Same for my Chevy Volt. Works great in the city on electric
| for the vast majority of my driving and for the 10% of long
| trips filling up ~8gal is quick and effortless at any gas
| station. Most of my long trips aren't road trips, they're get
| to the destination trips. The vehicle also has over 100k
| miles and really has had no major maintenance requirements
| other than the usual which has been surprising.
|
| That said, I really appreciate early adopters of EVs who are
| helping push the infrastructure.
| danans wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Plugin hybrids cars are expensive, not at the least because
| they require both a traditional ICE drivetrain and a large
| battery and electric motor, and specialized power split
| transmissions to make those work together.
|
| Therefore, most plugin hybrids are higher end (just like EVs)
| and marketed at wealthier people who want to drive electric
| most of the time but have range anxiety or don't want to deal
| with DC fast charging. Look for yourself:
|
| https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g15377500/plug-in-hybr...
|
| That said, they can make a lot of sense if you need 1 car that
| can do everything, both short daily drives and long trips. The
| sleeper hit here is the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. The new ones
| have 38miles electric range and seat 7.
|
| However, the falling price of batteries and growth of DC fast
| charging infrastructure means that they will PHEVs will be a
| bridge technology.
|
| Many city buses however are starting to convert to some form of
| plugin hybrid, although even their
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_electric_bus#List_of_tr...
|
| However, even city buses are moving towards full
| electrification since the maintenance and fuel costs tend to
| dominate the total cost of ownership for them, and those are
| much lower with full electric.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > specialized power split transmissions
|
| The thought occurs to me to make the rear wheels powered by
| the ICE and the front wheels electric.
|
| Then no wacky transmissions.
|
| I don't know anything about a "power split" transmission, but
| isn't that the sort of thing a differential gear set does
| very well at?
| danans wrote:
| > I don't know anything about a "power split" transmission,
| but isn't that the sort of thing a differential gear set
| does very well at?
|
| A _planetary_ gear set is often a component of a power
| split transmission, but there are other components. The key
| thing is that it is able to blend power from multiple
| sources [1]
|
| > The thought occurs to me to make the rear wheels powered
| by the ICE and the front wheels electric.
|
| > Then no wacky transmissions.
|
| The problem is you then have a car that switches the basic
| drive characteristics (FWD to RWD) depending on what fuel
| you are using. Everything from the chassis to the
| suspension in a car is designed according to where the
| power is coming from.
|
| Mitsubishi addressed this problem in their Outlander PHEV
| by using 2 electric motors, 1 on each axle, with the front
| axle being supplemented by the ICE engine (via a 1 way
| clutch) when more power is needed than the small battery
| can output, or when the battery is depleted [2]. This
| doesn't completely solve the problem but makes it less
| noticeable, and eliminates the need for a mechanical
| driveshaft between the front and rear.
|
| Also, this approach only switches the vehicle from FWD to
| AWD, not from FWD to RWD. It's the same with dual motor
| EVs, they switch from 1 axle drive to 2 axle drive - they
| don't switch from one axle completely to the other. Imagine
| your car suddenly becoming RWD when the battery was
| depleted. That would be weird, and potentially even
| dangerous.
|
| 1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0
| 0941....
|
| 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ__5-V6CTI
| kkfx wrote:
| It's VERY hard to keep a vehicle run straight with non-
| mechanically-tied wheels, you'll almost never get a
| "perfect enough" balance ending up in an engine
| pushing/pulling against the other.
|
| That's why for instance we do not have much multi-motors
| EVs without a mechanical coupling...
| WalterBright wrote:
| I'm not suggesting left-right, I'm suggesting forward-
| back.
| danans wrote:
| > That's why for instance we do not have much multi-
| motors EVs without a mechanical coupling...
|
| AFAIK, no multi-motor EV has a mechanical coupling
| between the motors. Do you know of a counter-example?
| enragedcacti wrote:
| In that case you would still need a transmission for the
| engine which would likely increase cost and complexity
| compared to the surprisingly simple and elegant planetary
| gear transmissions used in most modern hybrids e.g.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Synergy_Drive
|
| By using two electric motors connected to a planetary
| gearset you can replace the starter and alternator, allow
| for electric drive and regenerative braking, and provide a
| continuously variable transmission for the gas engine all
| with a set of constantly meshed gears (i.e. no shifting
| components).
| SpeedilyDamage wrote:
| 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.
| jdc0589 wrote:
| 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.
| pastor_bob wrote:
| The MTA actually went from using a lot of hybrid buses to fully
| diesel at one point[0], and now they're slow rolling out fully
| electric by...2040[1]. Just far out enough they can do
| basically nothing over the next couple years, and still claim
| they're on track.
|
| [0]https://nypost.com/2013/06/30/mta-hasnt-purchased-a-
| hybrid-b...
|
| [1]https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/200-electric-buses-
| are-...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _now they 're slow rolling out fully electric by...2040_
|
| The MTA operates 5,800 buses [1]. At 525 kWh per bus [2],
| that's 3 GwH of batteries fleetwide. Charging those daily is
| enough to keep a large power plant busy.
|
| [1] https://new.mta.info/project/zero-emission-bus-fleet
|
| [2] https://chargedevs.com/newswire/new-yorks-mta-
| orders-60-more...
| mabbo wrote:
| Plugin hybrids have the worst of both options as well as the
| best.
|
| They have to carry with them an entire gas engine, plus large
| electric motors, plus a huge battery. That's a lot of mass.
| This makes them inefficient as gas vehicles, and less efficient
| as EVs.
|
| Take a look at the Toyota Prius Prime, considered a great PHEV.
| It's got almost the same gas milage in combined city/highway
| driving as my 2012 Honda Civic (around 50 mpg). The Prius has
| got a slight edge. But that's _combined_ , which presumes 45%
| highway and 55% city. You don't want to take that car on a road
| trip because once the battery is dead, you'll be needing to
| stop to refill the gas tank every 90 minutes. My Civic will
| drive 600km or more on highways, easily.
|
| PHEVs are the best vehicle if you drive less than 60km per day,
| and mostly have stop-go city driving (so you can recharge on
| braking).
| KMag wrote:
| > PHEVs are the best vehicle if you drive less than 60km per
| day, and mostly have stop-go city driving (so you can
| recharge on braking).
|
| Nit: it's the low average speed of stop-go driving (less air
| resistance) that makes city driving more efficient for EVs.
| You'd get even better efficiency for the same average speed
| if it weren't stop-go driving.
| jefftk wrote:
| _> you 'll be needing to stop to refill the gas tank every 90
| minutes_
|
| This is just wrong. The Prius Prime has an 11.4 gal tank and
| is rated 53mpg on the highway [1]. If you drive 70mph you'll
| need to refill after 7+ hours of driving and 500+mi.
|
| [1] https://www.toyota-slo.com/blog/the-new-2022-toyota-
| prius-pr...
| [deleted]
| unregistereddev wrote:
| I'm a bit confused by your numbers, and I suspect we may be
| mixing multiple units of measure (maybe due to different
| definitions of gallon?).
|
| The 2021 Prius Prime is rated at 53mpg highway. Let's assume
| that is optimistic and it gets 50mpg. Its fuel tank holds
| 11.4 gallons, but you don't want to run it dry - let's say 10
| gallons are usable. That is a 500-mile (~800km) range after
| the battery is dead. At 75mph, that requires stopping to
| refill the gas tank every 6 hours and 40 minutes.
|
| The most efficient 2012 Honda Civic is the hybrid, which is
| EPA rated at 44mpg highway. That is very efficient. However,
| 44mpg -> 53mpg is a 20% increase in distance per gallon of
| fuel. The Prius Prime is significantly more efficient. Since
| we're intentionally ignoring electric range in these numbers,
| I think the efficiency gains are mostly from the 9 years of
| R&D that passed between these two cars being built.
|
| Interestingly, the non-plugin 2021 Prius Eco is also rated at
| 53mpg highway. I do think it's odd that the extra weight from
| a larger battery didn't have a bigger impact on fuel economy.
| It looks like that makes a small difference in town, where
| the Prius Eco gets 58mpg vs the Prius Prime's 55mpg.
| Panzer04 wrote:
| Weight is not that important for highway driving
| especially, where the vast majority of resistance comes
| from air and not rolling resistance. It's mostly bad for
| ICE stop and go, where you have to get the whole car moving
| again from a dead stop repeatedly.
| ben7799 wrote:
| The new Prius is probably larger & faster and meets more
| safety & emissions standards as well.
|
| And it will get much better fuel economy than the Civic as
| soon as traffic gets bad or some city driving is required.
|
| Picking highway MPG cherry picks the solution that makes
| the Hybrid or EV look the worst compared to the traditional
| ICE car.
|
| Not that the Civic is/was a bad car. But all cars are a lot
| bigger and safer than they were, so it's almost always
| cherry picking to go back and take an example of an old
| fuel efficient car. A lot of those old cars could not pass
| modern emissions or safety testing, they got their good
| fuel economy by being a) Slow b) Light. A big part of light
| was not having extra mass for safety or emissions. On top
| of all that the mileage ratings for cars have also changed,
| so you can't even directly compare the ratings for an old
| civic with a new one.
| unregistereddev wrote:
| To be fair, the EPA changed the way they calculate
| mileage ratings in 2006 (affecting window stickers in
| 2008), so the 2012 Civic is a valid-ish comparison. Also,
| I chose the most efficient Civic available, which was the
| hybrid model.
|
| I do wholeheartedly agree with you, though. Even when
| cherry picking data (highway mpg's, ignoring miles driven
| in EV mode, choosing the most efficient Civic) and
| ignoring other factors (larger, safer, lower emissions),
| the Prius Prime is much more efficient. I think plugin
| hybrids have their place.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| 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
| would help considerably when accelerating. It doesn't need to
| go 0-60 in 20 seconds while carrying 80K lbs like the Tesla
| Semi claims, but certainly having extra power could be useful
| in some scenarios. Heck, just having regen braking would be a
| game changer when going down hills. No noise from a Jake Brake,
| and no worries about burning up brake pads.
| peteradio wrote:
| Hows maintenance cost for hybrids compared to pure ice?
| giobox wrote:
| Generally not really any better or worse. The electric bits
| added in a PHEV is relatively ancient, simple and reliable
| tech - ~5 to 20kwh battery plus a small electric motor
| added to the end of the existing transmission in most
| cases. Electric motors in vehicles generally have little to
| no maintenance requirements and just last the lifespan of
| the vehicle - the stator/rotor never "touch" so there isn't
| anything that "wears" anything like as much as in a
| combustion engine and no complex lubrication challenges.
| The battery will wear over time, but again generally lasts
| most to all of the lifespan of the vehicle.
|
| In some cases reliability actually improves, as the
| extremely reliable electric motor can replace things such
| as reverse gear and the starter motor, reducing complexity
| of the ICE system and transmission. The only parts being
| serviced that you pay for continue to be the gas bits
| exactly as before.
| xenadu02 wrote:
| This more than doubles the complexity, increases weight, has
| much lower battery capacity, and still sticks you with the
| maintenance work required for the ICE.
|
| Plus gas is a very volatile mix that degrades; you must run
| the ICE regularly to ensure the tank gets cycled.
| dekhn wrote:
| Uh, exactly how long can I go between running the ICE
| engine before... something(?) happens to my gas and engine?
| hattmall wrote:
| It's unlikely to be a one time thing. But recurrently
| letting gas sit for extended periods of time could cause
| issues. This mostly only applies to ethanol containing
| fuels. This is why boats need to use 100% gas. You should
| do the same for a plugin hybrid if you don't cycle the
| tank at least every 2-3 weeks. That's all it takes to
| damage a boat if it sits. Cars will be better but the
| repeated exposure would certainly take a toll.
| dekhn wrote:
| What does "take a toll" mean? Sorry to be difficult but
| people tell me a lot of things will damage my car in the
| long term, but I haven't been able to reproduce any of
| those problems yet. The only thing that damaged my car
| was putting too much oil in it, that caused it to fail
| nearly immediately, and was covered by the warranty so it
| was free to replace the whole engine.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Eh, your car will run a little shitty with the old gas,
| leaving an engine without running it for extended periods
| can cause somewhat faster corrosion depending on your
| environment, and old gas can increase things like various
| gunk getting deposited around your engine.
|
| All in all, a mild shortening of the life of your engine
| and perhaps triggering some maintenance sooner than
| otherwise.
|
| Realistically, not much. The people saying "bad for you"
| aren't wrong but they also fail to mention the effect
| size. It's not particularly relevant unless you want to
| own the same car for a few hundred thousand miles and
| absolutely minimize maintenance. (Small aircraft for
| example, you want to care a lot about these things
| because they're very expensive, when the engine fails
| you'll be thousands of feet above the ground, and a well
| maintained plane can last decades. Your daily driver
| probably doesn't have any of these issues)
|
| There are various preventative things you can do to
| minimize the effects anyway. It's one of those internet
| things where yeah they're not wrong exactly but they need
| to relax. Having too much beer and cheeseburgers last
| night long term probably wasn't the best decision, but
| you know what I'll probably be fine.
|
| Leaking gas in a car for a long time is like eating too
| much fast food. Ok yeah not the greatest but are you the
| type of person who cares enough to never eat McDonald's?
| Make your decisions according to your disposition and
| don't take people telling you you're wrong too seriously.
| dekhn wrote:
| Thank you! This was my conclusion as well: there's an
| effect, it's small, and was probably much larger 30 years
| ago.
|
| I also only have the oil changed every 10K miles which
| horrifies my friends.
| unregistereddev wrote:
| Ethanol is hygroscopic. As long as you burn the fuel in a
| reasonable amount of time it's not a problem, but when
| ethanol sits over time it collects water. Next time you
| run your engine, it pulls water into the engine.
|
| Now, if the engine runs long enough to fully warm up,
| this isn't the end of the world. Any water will turn to
| steam and be pushed out through the exhaust. However, if
| the engine only runs for a short period of time, water
| can sit inside of it and cause corrosion. Realistically
| this is only a problem if you repeatedly allow ethanol-
| containing fuel to sit for a long time, and also
| repeatedly run an ICE for very short periods of time.
|
| It is a bigger problem for boat motors, because they
| operate in a wet environment already. It is also a bigger
| problem for carbureted engines, where fuel sits in the
| carburetor bowl while the engine is not running. This
| allows hygroscopic fuels to corrode the inside of the
| carburetor while the engine sits.
|
| Ignoring ethanol, it is also true that gasoline breaks
| down over time. However, it typically takes many months
| before gasoline breaks down enough to worry. There are
| also additives that help stabilize gasoline for longer
| storage.
|
| TL;DR in a reasonably modern-ish car, it's probably fine.
| In small engines like lawn mowers, it is best to either
| use ethanol-free gasoline or to completely drain the fuel
| before storing the mower for the winter. In antique cars
| with carburetors, it is best to use ethanol-free
| gasoline.
| legitster wrote:
| BMW had something for their i3 that ran the engine
| automatically every so often for this very reason.
|
| But they also only stuck it with a 2 gallon tank.
| hangonhn wrote:
| My friends LOVE their i3 and it was like their gateway
| drug to EVs. I think if BMW had kept going on that
| concept, it would have create a true winner. They NEVER
| needed to refill their backup tank in the 2 or 3 years
| they leased. I think BMW did something special to make
| the gas tank keep the gasoline that long. In that span of
| time, battery mode satisfied all their needs and they
| loved driving it.
| opwieurposiu wrote:
| You want to run an engine once a month or so to keep all
| the internal parts protected from rust by a thin film of
| oil. It is best to let it heat up all the way to drive
| out as much moisture as possible.
|
| Internal rusting is a big issue on airplanes that do not
| get flown often enough. The first thing to go are the cam
| shafts.
|
| https://www.aviationpros.com/home/article/10387461/corros
| ion...
| jstarfish wrote:
| > It is best to let it heat up all the way to drive out
| as much moisture as possible.
|
| > Internal rusting is a big issue on airplanes that do
| not get flown often enough.
|
| I was always told to take the car for an actual drive
| (including a highway stretch) to achieve these ends,
| otherwise the moisture you're expelling accumulates in
| the exhaust system.
|
| Looking around the neighborhood, I assume the people with
| the rusted-out mufflers are the ones that just let it
| idle.
| dekhn wrote:
| In fact there was just a PR blitz about not idling to
| circulate oil: https://cars.usnews.com/cars-
| trucks/features/aaa-says-dont-w...
|
| Since I have yet to see any of these various claims
| having any impact on the maintainability or function of
| my car, I think I'll stick to my plan of not wasting the
| gas in my engine for months at a time.
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| I don't recall specific models, but I have read some
| (many? most?) plug-in hybrids monitor how long since the
| tank was last filled and at a certain point will run the
| gas engine to work through the fuel before it goes bad.
| bcrl wrote:
| I've always wondered why there aren't diesel hybrids on
| the market given the higher energy density of diesel plus
| its long term stability. It would seem to be the ideal
| use-case since the diesel engine could be run at the RPM
| needed to be to minimize emissions.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| > This more than doubles the complexity
|
| hybrid systems are complex but really not much more complex
| than traditional ICE when you consider that they no longer
| need starters or alternators, have transmissions with no
| shifting components, and can use electric A/C compressors
| to avoid accessory belts entirely.
|
| They also have much longer maintenance intervals because
| the engine is only running ~2/3rds of the time.
|
| Electric cars are of course simpler but have cost and range
| issues that are prohibitive for some use cases, not to
| mention will usually weigh much more than even an
| equivalent plugin hybrid.
|
| Suffice to say there is a reason that the best taxi vehicle
| has been the Prius for more than a decade. efficient and
| rock solid reliable despite increased complexity.
|
| Most importantly though, you can make 10 plugin hybrids
| with the battery from one BEV. As long as raw materials for
| batteries are a bottleneck then we should be seriously
| considering PHEVs as a stopgap if as we can make sure they
| are getting charged.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| It doesn't have to double complexity. Look at the BMW i3
| Rex - it used a basic range-extending generator and was
| ahead of its time. The weight savings of the Rex vs. a
| larger battery are significant. Most EVs carry around a
| battery that they'll only use 10% of on a typical day.
| endisneigh wrote:
| That doesn't make sense, a lithium battery is heavier than
| an engine in the differentials we are talking about.
|
| The volt pretty much already is a case study for the other
| points. It's not really that much work.
|
| The later point can be resolved with software that uses the
| gas on occasion.
| legitster wrote:
| If you know ahead of time that the engine is going to run
| infrequently, there are lots of ways to mitigate this. The
| ICE is tantamount to a backup generator, and there are very
| reliable backup generators.
|
| > This more than doubles the complexity, increases weight
|
| I mean, US consumers already put up with this when it came
| to automatic transmissions. But the cost/maintenance
| problems were a fair trade-off for convenience.
|
| And in the case of plug-in hybrids, they are VERY
| convenient. You almost never need to get gas, but you can
| still go on a road trip without any pre-planning.
| toast0 wrote:
| A Toyota Synergy style hybrid has a more mechanically
| simple transmission than an ICE plus a traditional
| transmission. I haven't seen numbers, but I'd be surprised
| if ICE plus a fuel system weighs more than 300 miles worth
| of batteries, but you get 600 miles of range with the ICE.
| You could easily get more, but PHEVs seem to be stuck with
| a 12 gallon tank.
|
| My PHEV has a two year maintenance cycle, and the ICE
| portion is changing the oil, mostly. Yes, at some point
| you'll need to do a timing chain/belt, and there's
| incidentals; you'll never need to replace emissions
| equipment on a BEV, and most of the unscheduled maintenance
| on my ICE equipped cars has been related to emissions: EGR
| valves, o2 sensors, EVAP canisters, etc.
|
| The engine control system takes care of running the ICE
| regularly, it's not something you have to worry about. I'd
| expect it to push you to fill up the tank about twice a
| year if you're mostly driving electric. I drive my PHEV
| mostly gas, and not that often anyway, so I just fill up
| every 500 miles or so.
| pastor_bob wrote:
| 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.
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| Oil is a finite resource. Eventually economics will force
| people to abandon gas (my bet is sooner than the 50 years
| the industry projects there are reserves for).
| comte7092 wrote:
| I live in an apartment. I drive a full EV and the 200+ miles
| range allows me to get away with charging at public chargers
| intermittently rather than having to plug in basically every
| night.
|
| If I had a plug in hybrid, it wouldn't get plugged in.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| If you could charge at home with your own dedicated
| charger, would you plug in a plug-in hybrid?
| asdff wrote:
| I think there is a sweet spot for city size and how many
| people are using EVs for apartment EV users now. Your city
| needs to be large enough to draw investment for this
| infrastructure, but it can't be so large that each and
| every charger in town has someone already parked there,
| which is what seemingly happens when I see the few dozen
| chargers installed around my neighborhood.
|
| You also don't want most people to be driving EVs, because
| then it quickly becomes a situation like bikes are with
| last mile transport: if everyone used them, they wouldn't
| work so well, but so long as only a few people are using
| them it works great for you. If everyone brought a bike on
| the train we'd have to redesign trains to be far longer and
| lengthen underground stations to match; right now its fine
| because its only maybe 2-3 people per train car with a bike
| in my experience, but if that changes the fixes are
| expensive.
|
| Likewise with EV chargers, if we see mass adoption, we'd
| have to foot the bill to turn every basically zero cost
| spit of pavement people park on into dedicated charging
| infrastructure. I'm assuming a municipal charger will have
| to be substantially more rugged and able to handle more
| abuse than your average home charger installation.
| Estimates on the internet vary for what a l2 charger costs,
| lets say its $10000 for one fit for a public parking spot.
| That would put the cost to convert the 6 million parking
| spots in Los Angeles at $60 billion. Sure that's probably
| not sound math, but it doesn't seem cheap, especially
| factoring in ongoing maintenance and replacement.
| ff317 wrote:
| A decent L2 charger should be installable at scale for
| ~$1K per unit IMHO. I'm basing this on the fact that a
| singular L2 home charger can be installed for about that.
| Figure the industrial variant costs a little more, but
| you get savings from the mass scale of deployment. They
| probably cost more now, but competition will bring it
| down as we scale.
|
| Also, not everyone will even need L2 everywhere all the
| time, because many will be able to charge at home or use
| fast-chargers in emergencies. You don't have to be near-
| full at all times. You could deploy them at only 1/N
| spots, say something closer to 1/4 of all the spots, if
| even that (apartments might need 1/1, but streets and
| business parking lots/garages would need far less. You
| don't need them in any short-term street parking areas,
| as L2 is mostly-useless unless the car is sitting in
| place for hours).
|
| You also don't necessarily need to have the raw power to
| run them all simultaneously: you can have local groups
| powershare (e.g. deploy 8 chargers with a feed-in that
| supports 4, and the chargers can coordinate to drop their
| charge rate as more people plug in).
|
| If those wild assumptions are true ($1k, 1/4 of parking
| spots), LA's bill drops to $1.5B, which seems much more
| reasonable. The capacity will build up organically over
| time as EV adoption grows, starting with corporate and
| apartment parking lots.
|
| I think in this hypothetical all-EV future, there would
| be other compensating changes to the city as well. Like,
| all gas stations would go poof, and their tanks, and the
| fuel delivery trucks, and most of the refineries, and all
| of the associated impacts on peoples' health from both
| the fueling and the car exhausts, etc. There's a lot of
| potential upside to offset any reasonable electrification
| costs.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I've had a couple of apartments install ev chargers in
| every parking space in the last few years. That kind of
| thing is going to get progressively more common.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| I think the "if I had a hybrid, it wouldn't get plugged
| in" part is what they were calling out: that is now a
| fossil fuel car _even though_ they could quite
| comfortably plug it in.
|
| Hybrid cars are, effectively, enablers. The not-even
| temptation to just top it up, in under a minute, at an
| entirely acceptable cost (given that you could afford a
| hybrid, you can afford gas) is the best way to prevent
| people from actually going electric.
|
| Plus, from an industry perspective, hybrids are the
| perfect excuse for manufacturers to just keep spending on
| ICE improvements rather than EV improvements: as long as
| the total package seems to get more mileage every year,
| no one's paying attention to the fact that the EV parts
| don't get improved nearly as much as the ICE parts do.
| And because hybrids cut into EV sales, manufacturers have
| the perfect excuse to keep working on ICE tech because
| "the majority of people are still buying cars with an ICE
| or ICE component".
|
| Hybrids would be great if people were rational. Instead,
| people are the exact opposite, and hybrids are the
| perfect "let's not move to full EV" excuse for consumers
| and manufacturers alike.
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| Why do we need chargers in every parking space? Is every
| space allotted? In our parking structure (five floors) we
| have about 50 EVs and only four chargers, there's always
| at least one spot available. I guess there's no real harm
| in it but seems like a waste of resources.
| colechristensen wrote:
| If everybody has an EV it becomes more of a problem and
| shuffling your car around to leave space for your
| neighbors is a time sink.
|
| For a while I commuted 80 miles a day which would have
| meant daily charges were more or less necessary. Having
| to take the car out for a walk every night would have
| been irritating.
| anonu wrote:
| I'll play the devil's advocate here: its because hybrids are
| boring. Specifically, they accelerate slowly. We live in a
| world of instant gratification (tweets, tiktok, etc..) People
| want the same with their cars. Which is why TSLA was
| successful. Personally, when I think TSLA I think of a car
| that dominates the 0 to 60 charts for a fraction of a cost
| the ICE cars on the list.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| The idea that hybrids accelerate slowly is probably a
| leftover stereotype from when the only hybrids for sale
| were econoboxes like the Prius. The instant torque from an
| electric motor actually helps with acceleration. These days
| many of the quickest supercars are hybrids. And there are a
| bunch of consumer cars where there the hybrid is quicker
| than the ICE version.
| jacquesm wrote:
| A Toyota Prius is pretty close to that.
| danielfoster wrote:
| Why does critical infrastructure need to be among the first to
| "go green?"
| quantified wrote:
| Not that it needs to go first. It's visible and it's possible
| for a small number of decision-makers to decide and have an
| impact over a larger swath of infrastructure. 1000 vehicles can
| be the result of 10 people deciding, not 1000 people deciding.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| "Critical infrastructure" is critical because it has some job
| more important than being a billboard for a cause. If you can
| make it a billboard without compromising it's primary
| function, then great, but obviously EV garbage trucks isn't
| such a case.
| quantified wrote:
| EV snowplows isn't a case. I'd be interested if any
| discussion of electrifying included plowing.
|
| One thing that's clear: until battery-powered EVs are able
| to handle real muscular work (snow removal, hauling,
| plowing, etc.), diesel engines will be purchased,
| maintained and fueled by all levels of authority. Exactly
| how will roads be maintained without graders, pavers, etc.?
| Symbiote wrote:
| Garbage trucks make almost all their emissions in the city,
| with their staff working around them. They work at low speed
| and stop and start continually.
|
| Other than this ploughing requirement, they seem a good early
| opportunity for conversion.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Who says it does? What does that address?
|
| Improving fleets has large ROI. The benefit is all the
| emissions from all those vehicles. The cost should be lowered
| per vehicle due to standardization, and due to professional
| managers, maintainers, and drivers who can handle much more
| complexity and deal with novel issues.
| fulafel wrote:
| We can't afford to make things "go green" serially, we need to
| move on all fronts at once.
| customname wrote:
| Why?
| ohelabs wrote:
| To me, this is hard to understand. There used to be a saying
| "right tool for the right job" and I'm sure when Ford released
| the model T lots of people said "horses can do X while
| automobiles can not"
|
| This is a step ... where basically 9 months out of the year there
| is no emissions in the city and the trucks are effectively the
| same 1:1 replacement.
|
| I also understand that this is a much harder article to write
| "the city got away with using the wrong tool for the job for
| years and now has to address the problem they created" (this cuts
| both ways). It probably seemed like a win win at the time but now
| a solution will need to be engineered to solve it... im also sure
| having a hybrid fleet (some ICE and some EV) will be great for
| times of increased demand and having backups when something
| breaks...
| [deleted]
| RogerL wrote:
| They say all of that, and more in the article.
| agtorre wrote:
| I wonder what the longer-term solution is for this? More trucks?
| Exchangeable batteries? Faster charging?
| gee_totes wrote:
| Heated streets?
| nine_k wrote:
| It's ultimately heating the atmosphere above them. I heard
| this planed had some trouble with thermal balance recently,
| things were getting too hot.
|
| In seriousness, heating streets with abundant solar energy
| harvested nearby _would_ be reasonable. But sunshine in
| winter months is not as intense, and you 'd have to build, as
| usual, a huge battery to keep the energy for the night. (When
| this is solved, more problems would get solved along the way
| than just de-snowing streets.)
| legitster wrote:
| Solid state batteries show promise. But honestly for a set or
| requirements like this, just using traditional fuel + paying
| for carbon sequestration would probably be a cheaper option.
| IronWolve wrote:
| Swappable batteries is how some countries are migrating to ev
| for motorcycle/scooter taxis, just swap batteries and keep
| moving passengers. The cost savings seems to be worth it, read
| that its about 75% savings against fuel costs.
|
| The easy solutions will go first, working its way up with
| better tech and design.
|
| I think car/fleet size batteries isn't really feasible with
| swapping batteries. Small scooter batteries seems like a no
| brainer.
| legitster wrote:
| I don't know about this. I don't think battery swapping
| scales up very well.
|
| Firstly, I know someone who works on Daimler's electric
| trucks and he assures me that their electric powertrains are
| EXTREMELY dangerous just from the amount of power
| represented. Union operators have expressed negative interest
| in connecting/disconnecting the batteries outside of the
| factory.
|
| Secondly, the economics - the battery pack on a Tesla already
| represents over half of the materials and manufacturing cost.
| And it's the only scarce thing about EVs. If you are a fleet
| operator and have to maintain a bank of batteries to charge,
| you may as well just buy the bodies to go with.
|
| So I would guess that in an EV fleet future where the cost of
| batteries has dropped significantly, you will probably see
| the size of the fleets increase as operating costs drop.
| IronWolve wrote:
| Its already being used at the scooter level, scales fine
| there for small applications where batteries are as easy to
| replace as filling the tank of gas.
| asdff wrote:
| It scales well there because you can hold a scooter
| battery with your hand.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _Union operators have expressed negative interest in
| connecting /disconnecting the batteries outside of the
| factory._
|
| To be fair, union operators express negative interest in
| anybody outside their union doing anything that might be
| construed as otherwise the union's work.
| landemva wrote:
| > you will probably see the size of the fleets increase
|
| This is already happening with municipal bus and school bus
| fleets. The bus count is over-provisioned to allow for the
| longer electric 'refueling' times.
|
| As fleet managers understand, when a vehicle is being
| refueled it is out of service.
| legitster wrote:
| In this case, I think NYC is an edge-case where they
| don't have a lot of room to store additional fleet
| resources.
| the-rc wrote:
| Citibike wants to connect to the city grid so they don't
| need to send technicians to every station to swap dead
| batteries. It's not too much of a stretch to think that,
| perhaps, the stations could recharge truck batteries, too,
| at some point. Many fewer residents bike during the winter,
| let alone during a snow storm, so you could, conceivably,
| sacrifice a bike space or two or five in December-February
| (or just when you know snow is coming). Stations are
| ubiquitous by now: especially in the denser areas, there's
| one every few blocks.
|
| That's assuming you can deal with safety, theft and other
| related issues.
| the-rc wrote:
| The other point I forgot to make is that, during a storm,
| you could ground a lot of other non-essential electric
| vehicles, e.g. buses, and place their batteries
| strategically throughout the city (at a bike station, or
| empty parking spots). Once the emergency is over, you're
| not stuck with a lot of excess inventory. That, again,
| assumes a lot: common batteries, etc.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| All of the above. Must Run trucks should probably be gas
| turbine hybrids, that can burn anything for fuel (diesel,
| biodiesel, Jet A, etc), versus full electric.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/samabuelsamid/2016/06/07/mack-t...
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| >ust Run trucks should probably be gas turbine hybrids, that
| can burn anything for fuel (diesel, biodiesel, Jet A, etc),
| versus full electric.
|
| That's just high tech engineer fantasy though.
|
| Turbine is great for steady loads and terrible for cyclical
| loads which is what a garbage truck does all day. Electrical
| is great for cyclical but batteries just don't support the
| energy density to do it all day. You can theoretically bridge
| the gap real well with a hybrid system but it's only
| theoretical because in the real world other people's money is
| not actually an unlimited resource and you're not getting a
| turbine into anything cheaply. There's a reason you only see
| them in vehicles that are already fantastically expensive
| (tanks) and benefit greatly from some of the specific
| performance attributes. It would be really cool though...
|
| Right now the trucks can do 1/3 of what they need with the
| batteries they have. Commercial vehicles like this are very
| much constrained by weight. The "nearly free" and shovel
| ready solution is to just raise the weight limit for the
| vehicles in question so they can pack on the other 2/3 of the
| batteries they need and let them roll around at 120k+ all day
| like concrete trucks. Sure you'll get a little more wear and
| tear on stuff but this solution doesn't require an unforeseen
| technology (battery) or economic (turbines) breakthrough.
| landemva wrote:
| Rather than running excess weight on roads, they could also
| deploy the shovel ready solution of liquid fuel and
| internal combustion engines.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > Turbine is great for steady loads and terrible for
| cyclical loads which is what a garbage truck does all day.
|
| Right. This would certainly apply to the mechanically
| coupled turbine truck prototypes from the 70's.
|
| But if its driving a generator then you can let batteries
| or capacitors handle the cyclic loads of acceleration and
| have a computer throttle the turbine according to the
| overall demand.
| jollyllama wrote:
| This technology has been talked about lately in the context
| of Abrams tanks which could potentially be used in Ukraine.
| Doesn't it burn a lot more fuel?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Yes! But that might be a penalty you're willing to make
| versus long turnaround times, especially if you're in NYC
| vs a harsh military theater and fueling infra is solved.
|
| The truck doesn't care if the battery slab is pulled and
| replaced with another battery or a hybrid powertrain, it
| just cares it has enough power to accelerate and
| decelerate.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/r40x15/why_are
| _...
| ericmay wrote:
| Yea just better tech. It's not a big deal. And it's all in
| progress. News just likes to make headlines about anything new
| so you get scared about it.
| legitster wrote:
| I dunno, "we've made things worse but _someone_ will come
| along and make it better " is not exactly confidence
| inspiring. Especially given the amount of wasted
| money/resources you will generate along the way.
| ericmay wrote:
| Not great framing because nobody made electric vehicles
| worse, they started off at a certain level of performance
| and then they'll just improve from there.
|
| Now you could say well we made _snow plowing_ worse, and of
| course in this specific example you 'd be right, but you'd
| be ignoring longer time horizons and not really comparing
| or accounting for the impact of negative externalities.
|
| An easy way to think about it is if you uninstalled an
| existing window and had tarp on it for a few days while you
| installed a more energy efficient window. You wouldn't say
| "things are worse now!", you'd recognize that you're making
| a change which is better over the long term.
| legitster wrote:
| > An easy way to think about it is if you uninstalled an
| existing window and had tarp on it for a few days while
| you installed a more energy efficient window.
|
| A more apt analogy would be if the new window was not
| even invented yet.
| ericmay wrote:
| Ok we'll use gas trucks forever and never change or
| improve or invent anything new.
| legitster wrote:
| ????
|
| Or we can just electrify applications that currently make
| sense and work from there as the technology improves.
| ericmay wrote:
| Instead of just being argumentative you should read my
| original post and the post I responded to.
| notinfuriated wrote:
| Yeah, I don't understand this pattern of comment-making
| on the internet. For whatever reason, your comment was
| downvoted slightly so then you got targeted by people
| over and over again, even in subsequent replies, with the
| least generous interpretation of every comment made. I
| suspect your initial comment also triggered a reaction in
| saying "it's not a big deal", to which a bunch of people
| thought, _" Oh yeah, well it's a real big deal
| actually!"_ despite this being a single article about a
| very specific situation in NYC, something HN readers will
| forget about in less than two weeks.
|
| I do not see the point in downvotes on this site. It
| seems like any slightly political article/discussion
| results in this sort of behavior.
|
| Sorry for the meta comment.
| itsyaboi wrote:
| A more apt analogy would be if you removed the existing
| window without having ordered a new one or found a
| contractor to install it.
| ericmay wrote:
| That's not a good analogy because in this case the snow
| plows still plow so some snow is still removed. To use
| your analogy then they would have sold existing plow-
| capable trucks and not had any to plow, but that wasn't
| the case.
| itsyaboi wrote:
| The tarp is partially effective, just like the electric
| trucks.
| ericmay wrote:
| Yes, partially effective until the new energy efficient
| window is installed. Stop gap measure. Transition period.
| Etc.
|
| I apologize if that wasn't _extremely_ obvious from what
| I already wrote.
| itsyaboi wrote:
| No need to apologize.
|
| The concern here is that the stopgap measure (the
| tarp/electric trucks) are implemented too early. The
| superior replacement window does not yet exist. There is
| no need to remove the older window and deal with a hole
| in the side of your house for half a year while you wait
| for new windows to hit the market.
| mindover wrote:
| As an EV owner. I can use my car in about 95% cases:
| that's plenty! Way cheaper than gas, no maintenance
| required, super comfortable, etc. The remaining 5% is
| when I need to drive somewhere rough or when it's very
| cold outside and I have concerns about getting stuck.
|
| There is no way I will give up the convenience of EV for
| those 5%.
| tinglymintyfrsh wrote:
| If they run a fleet, they should be swapping battery packs not
| waiting around for batteries to charge.
| mrmckizzle wrote:
| I'm surprised, I thought the electric engines would supply more
| torque. Thereby making it easier to plow snow.
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| While the headline references "power," the issue is that these
| electric trucks do not have enough battery capacity to plow
| snow for a full day before recharging overnight.
|
| I have always thought that municipal road services had great
| potential to be electrified via partial catenary: take power
| from (and charge batteries) where the roads are electrified,
| discharge battery where the roads are not electrified.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Stupid question so, why would you use a garbage truck to plow
| snow? Over here, cities, towns and musipalities use different
| vehicles for different jobs, suxh as garbage, snow plowing,
| street cleaning and so on...
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| This is a guess but most cities have a road/right of way
| department that does snow removal. For whatever reason, in
| NYC this is apparently done by the sanitation department. I
| think this is a meatspace Conway's Law, unrelated to
| whether or not it is actually better to have separate
| trucks or not.
| Ekaros wrote:
| It is one of those solutions that at first look might sound
| good. But with closer inspection there is more and more
| problems. Like for example is equipping the trucks
| sensible? And what happens to the garbage that should have
| been collected? And training people for both jobs. As
| driving snow truck does require some expertise.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| This is one of those objections that sounds good at
| first. But upon closer inspection you find out that the
| practice of using one truck for two different sorts of
| jobs has been commonplace for decades and it works out
| fine.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| Garbage trucks have easy attachment of snow plows and allow
| existing infrastructure to be on double duty. In a place
| like NYC storage of this many vehicles is also a concern,
| so just doubling your fleet for winter (3, maybe 4 months)
| usage isn't ideal either.
| rz2k wrote:
| They very rarely need to plow snow in New York city, but
| when they do there are hundreds of miles to plow, and it is
| _much_ faster if they begin the plowing before even an inch
| accumulates.
|
| It is much more efficient to press the thousands garbage
| trucks into this rapid snow plowing service a few days per
| year than to waste 20 acres storing snow plows for the 350
| days per year when they are not needed.
| mertd wrote:
| They also bury the trash bags under the plowed snow,
| which is a win-win for them because they can forget about
| collecting them until spring. :)
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| This and also: NYC residential trash collection is
| curbside. Literally leave trash bags on the curb. Trash
| collection cannot occur when the curb is snowed in.
|
| So, were there separate trucks for the two tasks, the
| trash trucks would sit idle until after the snow plow
| trucks had finished their rounds.
|
| Given the infrequency and relatively small volume of snow
| NYC gets, plus the curbside trash collection, sharing
| trucks and drivers is reasonably efficient.
| xtorol wrote:
| NYC does have a number of dedicated salt-spreader/plow
| trucks [1].
|
| As for why they use garbage trucks to plow, I speculate
| that it's an issue of scale. Buying a special purpose plow
| truck to replace every garbage truck that currently does
| double duty would leave you with a pretty
| significant/expensive fleet of trucks that are sitting idle
| most of the time (not to mention taking up space, which is
| at a premium in NYC).
|
| [1] https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dsny/site/about/fleet
| gopalv wrote:
| > why would you use a garbage truck to plow snow?
|
| They're optimizing for trained drivers who can drive safely
| in the snow rather than hire two.
|
| For a dangerous job on snowy roads, I think the fewer
| people employed with better pay is better than more people
| with lower pay for the same skills.
|
| That said, there are a lot of places which can buy EV
| garbage trucks before we get to the snow or ice.
|
| Who's not buying them is not as relevant when we're supply
| capped on the production of decent trucks with batteries in
| them.
|
| Sure, it affects the total-market calculations & how the
| development is funded, but might not change how many are
| sold per-year until the production scales.
| lylejantzi3rd wrote:
| It's not a torque issue. from the article: "We found that they
| could not plow the snow effectively - they basically conked out
| after four hours. We need them to go 12 hours,"
| nvrmnd wrote:
| It's not a good headline, if you read the article it is
| mentioned that the tested vehicles could only operate for 4
| hours before "conking out". Which I can only assume means they
| are running out of charge. I would expect the charging time for
| these niche vehicles is not state-of-the-art and the
| infrastructure is poor, so that makes sense.
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| From the article, it doesn't seem to be about torque. Their
| issues are charge duration in the battery (in cold conditions
| it only lasting 4 vs 12 hours) and the fact that they have to
| use garbage trucks at all compared to other municipalities
| using smaller trucks or dump trucks/graders. Apparently the
| city has committed to using the garbage trucks.
| anm89 wrote:
| Peak torque isn't the issue. It's how long the batteries can
| sustain sufficient torque
| pixl97 wrote:
| Cold weather and battery life are two things that do not get
| along.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| That, and when it snows in NYC, we tend lose power, so I
| don't know what the contingency is there. Diesel
| generators, I suppose. Is that better?
| [deleted]
| woeirua wrote:
| Pushing snow is hard work. Harder than towing a large payload,
| so it makes sense to me that electric garbage trucks that might
| last a full day of garbage collection will fail to last as long
| while pushing around tons of snow. Just a simple matter of
| physics here.
| [deleted]
| sethhochberg wrote:
| 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-distance routes to the dump, they use a network of transfer
| stations around the boroughs. They're using DC fast charging.
| They're exploring other hybrid options.
|
| NYC isn't always great at avoiding its own special breed of "NYC
| exceptionalism", but in this case it sure looks like they're
| doing everything reasonably. The electric trucks are seemingly
| working well for garbage collection. They just can't take the
| whole fleet electric (yet) for double-duty as snow plows.
| countvonbalzac wrote:
| So we'll wait until batteries improve to the point where they can
| be used. Not a big deal. In the mean time personal transportation
| can be fully electrified. The subway has been running on
| electricity for more than 100 years.
| dripton wrote:
| The title of the post is not the same as the title of the
| article, and it's wrong. The problem isn't that the plows aren't
| powerful enough; it's that they can only plow for four hours
| before running out of battery life, and the city wants plows to
| last twelve hours.
| [deleted]
| djtriptych wrote:
| This smells to me at least a little bit like union pressure to
| slow the transition to electric vehicles, which is just a hop
| from fully autonomous city vehicles, putting them all out of work
| forever.
| petermcneeley wrote:
| Seems like a random excuse to Trash talk unions.
| djtriptych wrote:
| Well, a union rep is quoted in the article, which was weird.
| His statement was also a little weird. The conclusions and
| the math involved don't really add up for me. They laid the
| groundwork for a fight against _any_ conversion to electric
| vehicles by warning the city council about the possibly
| prohibitive cost of installing a charger network...
|
| I'm not sure it's too outlandish to postulate that the union
| would act in their own interest here. I think any plan to
| convert to autonomous vehicles should include a plan for
| these workers. But I don't think you get to be Sanitation
| Commissioner in NYC without union support.
| petermcneeley wrote:
| Perhaps the union organizers think this but it doesnt
| really make much sense given that the trains (subway) in
| NYC are the first thing I would automate and apparently
| still have drivers. Automating trash pick-up in NYC is
| probably harder than L5 autonomous driving.
| djtriptych wrote:
| It's hard now, but this is a 20 year plan to replace the
| fleet. Already a budget item for the city, and, possibly,
| the frontline for union concerns about automation.
| redox99 wrote:
| How is it just a hop from fully autonomous city vehicles? The
| sensor suite and software doesn't really care about the type of
| engine. Waymo's Chrysler Pacificas are hybrids in fact.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _union pressure to slow the transition to electric vehicles,
| which is just a hop from fully autonomous city vehicles_
|
| Wouldn't this incentivise earlier fleet turnover to electric?
| If you've just bought an electric fleet, it's tougher to
| justify turning it over again for autonomous only.
| djtriptych wrote:
| Interesting wrinkle
|
| I'd have to think any fully electric car is a better target
| for autonomous retrofitting, because the drivetrain is
| already completely fly-by-wire?
|
| Using a random estimate, a $100,000/vehicle autonomous
| retrofit probably pays for itself in like a year. The initial
| outlay of let's say a half billion to replace the city's
| fleet with EVs is a much bigger hurdle.
| mabbo wrote:
| Why are they using garbage trucks to plow snow?
|
| Looks, I get that I'm biased being in Canada, but do they
| understand that you can buy _dedicated vehicles for plowing
| snow_? They 're called... snowplows. They're pretty fantastic.
|
| You need garbage trucks every day, all year. Electrify those. You
| need snowplows on a handful of days per year- and that number is
| falling thanks to climate change. So buy purpose-built snowplows
| for those days that use fuels instead of batteries.
|
| But it's silly to decide to have an all-fuel fleet of garbage
| trucks just because they can't also be used as snowplows a few
| days per year that you need them.
| rsstack wrote:
| NYC has 30,000 streets and only a handful of days of snow in
| the year. By having garbage trucks that can deal with a few
| inches of snow, you avoid the need of buying dozens of
| dedicated vehicles that will rot 360 days a year.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| What you are describing is overspeccing (thus over paying
| upfront and for maintenance) of the large fleet in order to
| avoid having a small fleet.
|
| Alternatively, the large fleet could be appropriately specced
| and the small fleet can be "mothballed" the rest of the year,
| thus preserving its longevity.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _large fleet I order to avoid having a small fleet_
|
| The large fleet is "2,230 general collection trucks, 275
| specialized collection trucks, 450 street sweepers, 365
| snowplows, 298 front end loaders, and 2,360 support
| vehicles" [1]. Those general collection trucks, together
| with the plows, constitute a circa 2,300-plow snow fleet
| [2].
|
| Dedicated fleet means buying 2,000 more snowplows. There is
| no small fleet option.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Departmen
| t_of_...
|
| [2] https://nypost.com/2020/12/05/nyc-spent-12m-per-inch-
| of-snow...
| mabbo wrote:
| You're not wrong. I agree with you. I just see that as a
| better option than continuing to burn fuel in trucks that
| don't need it 360 days per year.
| gen220 wrote:
| Might the better option be a hybrid truck, which runs on
| electricity 90% of the time but has the capacity to use
| fossil fuels in situations such as these? (snow is but one
| example, I can imagine other exceptional circumstances
| where such a vehicle might need an extra boost).
|
| To balance your suggestion, the environmental cost of
| constructing, shipping, and maintaining a fleet of single-
| purpose snow plows is not close to zero.
| culi wrote:
| Along the same line, can we modularize these trucks? Like
| the specific parts useful for snowplowing, can we take
| them off the rest of the year (less gas wasted) and add
| them back on only when needed
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| Better for whom or what? Surely not for the New York City
| budget, or the folks who pay for it.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Better for those folks and the budget, both of which will
| feel the full impact of climate change.
|
| (But I don't think a separate fleet is the answer.)
| wernercd wrote:
| [flagged]
| KMag wrote:
| > Might as well believe in Halley's Comet and enjoy a
| cool glass of koolaid.
|
| Have I just run into an Internet conspiracy theory where
| Halley's Comet is "what the man wants you to believe,
| wake up sheeple?"
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Maybe they were joking:
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11286314/
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| It's better for the environment to build and maintain a
| separate fleet of occasionally-used snow plows?
| [deleted]
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Did you read the second sentence? I mean, I know people
| don't read entire articles, but two sentences?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Did you read the second sentence?_
|
| You said a separate fleet is better "for the folks and
| the budget" of New York, and added a parenthetical
| clarifying that it isn't the answer. I'm agreeing with
| the second sentence, that a separate fleet isn't the
| answer. I'm also refuting the first point, that it's
| better than the _status quo_.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Not a separate fleet, just electrifying the trucks
| somehow would be beneficial (depending on how that's
| done, of course - not with coal-fired charging stations
| on every block).
|
| I'm just trying to include the factor of climate change,
| which does and will cost a ton.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Is that just how you feel?
|
| Or can you show the conversion saves resources even when
| you have to buy and maintain dozens of extra vehicles?
|
| This seems to me like you're making a negative decision
| just because you find it emotionally satisfying, without
| any reasonable basis to believe that it improves things.
| alcover wrote:
| > only a handful of days of snow in the year
|
| I know modern economy has gone full-JIT but I naively wish we
| could just _stop_ in this case and.. wait.
|
| Then this question of truck fleet would be moot.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| You really don't want that. I mean, if you're sure things
| are going to stay below -10degC for the forseeable future,
| by all means leave the snow on the roads, and I wish more
| places in Northern Europe would do that. (Winter days
| become much more tolerable when what little light you have
| is reflected back by snow.)
|
| But if they are not and especially if they are going back
| and forth, then you're getting slush, half-frozen slush,
| frozen slush packed into ice, or half-frozen slush on top
| of frozen slush packed into ice, and not only do you not
| want to drive on that, it's also a pain to remove even from
| pedestrian paths, because you need power tools to break it
| up and then you have a crapton of inch-thick sheets of ice
| you have to transport and dump to melt somewhere. They take
| a couple of weeks to melt naturally on the road, or a
| couple of months under the spring sun if you pile them up
| on the side of the road (which also happens to look
| hideous).
| tinglymintyfrsh wrote:
| With that luxury, sure. Emergencies happen. The garbage
| needs to be picked up.
|
| Total the costs of icy sidewalk slip and falls, lost
| economic activity, and excess deaths (QALY) over 10 years.
| Spend 1/4 of that on a series of underground passageways
| (un)like MIT.
| alistairSH wrote:
| _...the costs of icy sidewalk slip and falls..._
|
| No garbage-truck/plow is going to fix that, whether it be
| powered by EV, ICE, or unicorn farts.
| porb121 wrote:
| You're talking about a city of 10+ million people.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _naively wish we could just stop in this case and.. wait_
|
| Congratulations, you shut off logistics and emergency
| services for a population the size of Virginia.
| smileysteve wrote:
| There's a lot to be said that we should rethink logistics
| and emergency services to use other modes if it's more
| resilient to severe weather, supply chain shortages
| (fuel) - or everyday things like traffic and construction
| Y_Y wrote:
| [flagged]
| Bostonian wrote:
| Millions of NYC residents have jobs and schools to go to
| and grocery shopping to be done. Locking them down for even
| a few days has huge costs.
| rsstack wrote:
| First: I don't go out in snow beyond a couple of blocks,
| things can wait. But that's me.
|
| Second: Just because the snow stops falling doesn't mean
| the problem goes away. The snow can take a couple of weeks
| to melt (essentially until the next rain, or a hot enough
| day), so stopping and waiting for nature to resolve the
| situation on its own would shut down the city for a month
| or so every year.
| thomascgalvin wrote:
| I wonder how much it would cost to heat the roads rather
| than plow them, and how that would compare to the current
| solution, long-term. NYC already has an extensive
| underground infrastructure ...
| rsstack wrote:
| It is essentially impossible to add anything underground
| in NYC _because_ of the extensive underground
| infrastructure. It is all but saturated.
| giantg2 wrote:
| And during that time, it can turn to ice.
| culi wrote:
| I was gonna suggest that they could simply share the snow
| plow vehicles for the rest of the year with other countries
| (like how we share firefighters with Australia) but then I
| realized the part of the world that would most likely need
| them when NYC doesn't is the opposite hemisphere and those
| vehicles are not easy to ship lol
| rsstack wrote:
| I don't think it snows enough in big Australian cities :D
| And there aren't (yet) electric super-jumbo cargo planes to
| ship these mechanical monstrosities.
| draw_down wrote:
| [dead]
| [deleted]
| topspin wrote:
| > Why are they using garbage trucks to plow snow?
|
| Fewer vehicles to acquire, maintain, store, etc. That seems
| self evident.
|
| Further, the scheme works fine. The issue isn't whether plowing
| snow and collecting garbage with the same vehicle is a workable
| idea. The issue is that there isn't an electric replacement
| available yet.
| brookside wrote:
| > Why are they using garbage trucks to plow snow?
|
| You are sort of answering your own question here.
|
| > snowplows a few days per year that you need them
|
| NYC has 6,300 miles miles of streets. Maintaining an entirely
| separate fleet of plow vehicles large enough to clear the
| streets quickly would have its own additional costs.
| yepguy wrote:
| Why do they even have their own fleet of garbage trucks,
| though? I'm pretty sure the garbage trucks where I live are
| all privately owned.
| Reubachi wrote:
| Because NYC is entirely different than where you live, most
| likely. City gov subsidizes trash pick up instead of
| allowing private companies to bid, because any private
| company would lose money. And if no city subsidized trash
| pick up, New York will be New Delhi.
| Loughla wrote:
| I don't understand how NYC couldn't make money for a
| private trash company. The trash company I use makes
| money, and our population density isn't anywhere near
| what it is in NYC. I have to imagine the largest cost is
| fuel, and it stands to reason that it takes much more
| fuel to get all of the trash where I live.
|
| I don't understand what you're saying, I guess. I don't
| understand how a city being large can just automatically
| lead to a loss for trash companies.
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| There are complicating factors in NYC, as well as the
| fact that the average resident doesn't pay what it
| actually costs for trash pickup, so moving to a private
| model would cost significantly more for each household.
| (Obviously TINSTAAFL, and this cost is just hidden in
| other ways. Eg taxes)
| alephnerd wrote:
| NYC already has private trash pickup and it's a bit of a
| S#1Tshow -
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/15/nyregion/nyc-
| garbage.html
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Why do they even have their own fleet of garbage trucks,
| though?_
|
| We have both: "New York City Department of Sanitation
| (DSNY)...serves residential buildings, government agencies,
| and many nonprofit facilities. The private system is
| regulated by the City's Business Integrity Commission (BIC)
| and consists of more than 250 waste hauling firms licensed
| to remove non-construction and non-industrial waste. The
| private haulers serve businesses ranging from small pizza
| parlors to large office buildings" [1]. The public system
| guarantees minimum service to the population.
|
| [1] https://cbcny.org/research/12-things-new-yorkers-
| should-know...
| TSiege wrote:
| First of all we have both. Second of all we are a
| democracy, and I have never once in my entire life living
| here heard for anyone call for privatizing the Department
| of Sanitation. If anything I've heard for calls to take
| over private sanitation because it way more dangerous to
| pedestrians and workers
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Waste hauling in NYC used to be run by the mob. It still
| may be to some extent, but that history has yet to be
| un-f*cked.
|
| They don't even use dumpsters, they just pile bags of trash
| on the sidewalk. And then wonder why they have a huge rat
| problem.
| josephorjoe wrote:
| Most of NYC does not have the physical space for
| dumpsters or the roadway access for dumpster lifting
| garbage trucks.
|
| There are some large buildings where it would be
| practical, but much of the residential housing consists
| of buildings with <10 apartments and no alleyways (let
| alone driveways).
| Ichthypresbyter wrote:
| The mob ran waste hauling for businesses who did (and
| still do) have to contract with private companies to take
| away their waste- the big trial that is supposed to have
| got rid of most of the mob control of this business was
| in the mid-90s.
|
| Residential trash in NYC is hauled away by city employees
| at the Department of Sanitation, and has been since the
| late 19th century.
|
| Both, though, expect trash (whether from a business or
| from an apartment building) to be simply piled up in bags
| on the sidewalk.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Why default to privately owned?
|
| Public services can be cheaper, more reliable, and you have
| more control than if you pay someone else to maximize their
| profit. NYC government has tons of experience and expertise
| in managing something like this.
| factsarelolz wrote:
| NYC also has a ton of fraud perpetrated by gov employees.
|
| https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/seventeen-new-york-
| city...
|
| https://www.reuters.com/legal/bribery-fraud-charges-are-
| dism...
| wolverine876 wrote:
| NYC government is huge; is that really a "ton"? Private
| business also has fraud.
| factsarelolz wrote:
| Government Officials defrauding their constituents is
| another level higher than private business fraud. Just my
| opinion though YOMV.
| edgyquant wrote:
| >Public services can be cheaper
|
| No they can be subsidized with tax money. That doesn't
| mean cheaper
| yodelshady wrote:
| No, they can be cheaper.
|
| Sod off with this, I've seen someone _literally
| hospitalised_ because of an army of private sector
| contractors we 've had to deal with finding _ingenious_
| efficiency savings, powered by ideologues like you. Now
| our costs have tripled.
|
| Oh, and guess f*king what; now several other suppliers
| are bankrupt, taking their already mostly-worthless
| support contracts with them, because they never invested
| _a cent_ in resilience, and, get this, are _blaming us
| for giving them that power_. The same power they were _so
| adamant_ , just like you, that they were so good at
| wielding. Their only efficiency _ever_ was stripping all
| resilience, not inefficency - deliberate resilience.
|
| The private sector is made of goddamn _children_ at
| times,
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Just like private services need to generate shareholder
| profits. that doesn't mean cheaper either.
|
| Would I rather pay garbage through taxes and fees or
| would I rather pay garbage and private profits through
| fees? In general, public services treat employees better,
| are more accountable to elected officials (good and bad)
| and aren't obligated to skim an extra little bit off the
| top to pay someone else. There are countless examples of
| privatization making services _less_ efficient in the
| long run, it 's not an automatic win.
| ectopod wrote:
| Public services can be as efficient as private services.
| And without the overhead of dividends they are cheaper.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I wouldn't take the extreme position either way. Public
| and private are different tools for different jobs.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| You pay for something; that's not a subsidy.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Because it's brilliant.
|
| They need to do both:
|
| Drive a big truck around the city streets pushing a plow to
| clear them of snow and ice
|
| And
|
| Drive a big truck around to collect garbage
|
| It's much more efficient to do both at the same time, use the
| same trucks and skilled labor to run them.
|
| It's a classic two birds one stone situation
| simmonmt wrote:
| Nit: They don't do both at the same time. The trucks are
| either plowing snow or they're picking up trash. That's why
| the trash piles up until the snow is cleared. After big
| storms you can end up with pretty epic piles of garbage
| collecting on sidewalks.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Actually hold on, we can also put people on these trucks.
| They can also serve as busses! And wait, attach a trailer and
| they can also replace semi trucks! Just use one truck to do
| all city related things, how neat is that? /s
|
| You can just go on, making it less and less efficient each
| step.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Thankfully the physical requirements to turn a garbage
| trunk into a snow plow are minimal. And it's more
| inefficient to have an idle fleet for huge parts of the
| year than to use slightly awkward plows.
| evo_9 wrote:
| Agree, but I would argue that 'climate change' is not making it
| fall necessary across the board for all use cases; what I
| notice here in Colorado is that we might get fewer snow days,
| but when we do get snow now, wow, it's crazy how much dumps.
|
| Another way of looking at this is, I used to get by with a
| ~$250 dollar electric snowblower; that thing died just last
| week when I asked too much of it trying to rid 10+ inches of
| very heavy, wet snow off our long driveway.
|
| I'll be replacing it with nice Toro gas powered snow blower
| (~$1000-1500) because I expect the same / worse going forward.
| Fewer snow days, but when it does snow, it's a lot more than we
| used to get.
| kkfx wrote:
| > Why are they using garbage trucks to plow snow?
|
| Perhaps because it's easy to add a connector plate and a bit of
| hydraulic in front of a truck and they already have them for
| garbage, they regularly run the on roads and their driver
| knowing where garbage containers are avoid some classic (at
| least here in UE) where the snowplowers push/launch snow
| everywhere not caring about anything else then keep the road
| clear... In a city handling snow it's even harder than in the
| countryside...
|
| > But it's silly to decide to have an all-fuel fleet of garbage
| trucks just because they can't also be used as snowplows a few
| days per year that you need them.
|
| Keeping up two fleet is not that cheap either: trucks/wheeled
| vehicles need to run regularly to keep their wheel well round
| and balanced, ICEs need to run regularly to keep the engine
| well lubed, starter and service batteries need to be kept
| charged, vehicles need to be parked somewhere (two fleets,
| twice the place), for ICEs you need to keep the fuel infra
| ready, and the amount of fuel it's not so little and so on.
|
| IMVHO as an EV owner I doubt ALL trucks can be electric so far,
| simply range, charge time, battery weight are still below a
| practical usability levels...
| petermcneeley wrote:
| Why have garbage trucks at all when you can have a series of
| tubes to transport garbage?
| oehtXRwMkIs wrote:
| NYC technically already has this in Roosevelt Island.
| enhdless wrote:
| More details: https://youtu.be/nfM4cjDoo6o
| rsstack wrote:
| Just context for international readers: Roosevelt Island
| has 11,000 residents, or 0.1% of NYC's population. The
| point stands, just providing context.
| hammock wrote:
| What is a garbage truck fleet if not a series of tubes?
| stickfigure wrote:
| We already have the internet.
| roflyear wrote:
| Yeah NYC really needs to get rid of the garbage trucks. Or
| figure out something. Garbage is becoming a problem for the
| city.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Well for one the tubes are not something you just dump
| something on, and if you don't understand, those tubes can be
| filled and if they are filled, when you put your garbage in,
| it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that
| puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous
| amounts of material.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| They should buy and maintain a separate fleet of trucks for
| those few days per year? This is NYC; that's going to be a lot
| of trucks. Even parking them - for 3xx days per year - would be
| a problem.
|
| They already have a fleet; it seems like a creative, effective
| solution - the kind of creativity that cynics say government
| lacks - to repurpose them for snow removal.
| jvm___ wrote:
| "that number is falling thanks to climate change"
|
| The weirdness of climate change is that warm air holds more
| water. So you'll get stronger storms, but some areas will see
| drought as the atmosphere holds more water and is less likely
| to give it up as rain/snow.
|
| So, less days on average, but more "once in an X" storms.
| tpmx wrote:
| _We found that they could not plow the snow effectively - they
| basically conked out after four hours. We need them to go 12
| hours._
|
| Are there any non-garbage truck BEVs with snowplows that can do
| that?
| MisterTea wrote:
| We have plow trucks but we don't have a lot of room to store a
| huge dedicated fleet.
|
| Also, this being hacker news I'd expect praise for efficient
| use of available equipment.
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