Two more Mack LR Electric garbage trucks hit the road in Ontario
Two more Mack LR Electric garbage trucks hit the road in Ontario
In a bid to help the city of Kingston, Ontario achieve its sustainability goals, town leaders ordered two Mack LR Electric refuse models.
Municipal waste collection seems like the perfect usecase for electrification. Low speed and frequent stops.
Low speed and frequent stops.
Also periodic forced "return to base" (truck is full), which presents an obvious opportunity to recharge.
Typically these trucks are only at a facility for 10-15 minutes, with only a few of those minutes being stationary. Unless they were fitted with a roof mounted charging set up with overhead wires, charging at the waste drop off wouldn't be worthwhile.
Another option would be doubling the fleet so the operators could switch trucks after tipping to allow the first vehicle charge time - however that's not economical. I found on their website these trucks have 376 kWh capacity. Not listed on their site is the expected range, but that's understandable given the varying needs of this type of vehicle.
Mack's MD Electric has a range of 225-370 kilometres. Some data I found online showed average route distances being around 100 kilometres, with the trucks being able to make two trips to the landfill per 8 hour workday.
If we assume the Mack LR will get half the range of the MD, a bit of route management makes two loads a day perfectly feasible without middle of shift charging.
Perhaps battery swapping tech for larger vehicles makes sense, depending on the usecase.
And lower maintenance which means long term savings!