EV Refuse Trucks Grounded Through Lack Of Chargers!
January 10, 2023
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
More problems in Eco-Land:
£6.5 million for 25 lorries works out at £260,000 a piece, which sounds extraordinarily expensive for what appears to nothing bigger than a Transit truck.
I have no idea what a proper truck would cost, maybe somebody else does.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
” Hyperhubs ” – how very Fireball XL-5 . Are these and the ” public charging points ” anything like the amenities that Giles Coren described in yesterday’s post ? I.e. less an amenity , more an embarrassment .
Maybe £28,000 + vat for one.
I guess deals could be stuck the more you buy.
Well girls and boys, can we spell c0rruption? OK…can you smell it??
Not enough that all they had to do was buy a couple for test purposes, but no, go the whole hog. After all, what’s £6.5Million among friends.
Seriously, I wonder what they did with all the old (were they?) diesel trucks?
“Councils have a duty to manage taxpayers’ money responsibly and should be held to account where they are found to have failed to do so.”
Trouble is they never are. In York or anywhere else.
Who is going to get sacked for this?
Do something like this in a private business and your job would last 5 minutes.
I think a full audit of how the contract was placed, what were the goals, what were the steps to achieve those goals, full test data, and what levels of success criteria were achieved. Because surely this was all above board and any project failings are the result of carelessness and stupidity?
To be fair, if you read the article thoroughly, they bought 43 for 6.5 million.
Ok but that is still an average of more than £150,000 per unit if my arithmetic is correct. Which is an order of magnitude more than an ICE van.
Yes, still a ridiculous price for a cash strapped council
Electric trucks are indeed more expensive than their diesel siblings. However, EV’s have fewer maintenance costs (less moving parts), and diesel is more expensive that electricity. And on the other hand, EV’s need time to charge and are not able to run as many hours per day as diesel trucks, plus replacing batteries is extremely expensive.
My take… it is not fair to only look at the purchasing price. Does anyone have any numbers on the total cost of ownership? After how many years would the EV truck be cheaper than the diesel truck (if at all)?
Peter,
For a start, the EV trucks’ batteries must be straight line depreciated to net zero over 8 years (the end of their useless life). Then the cost of disposal of the pollutants they contain added. You then need to add the cost of the replacement battery and depreciate that as well.
Then you need to add in the opportunity cost at say 5% per annum on the £150, 000 for each truck; plus the underlying depreciation over say 15 years.
Tyre wear is greater in EV’s. Damage to publicly funded roads is greater also, due to the greater weight of the vehicles.
In the end, you’ll find that there is a significant cost penalty to running EV trucks – especially at the prices paid here.
See my comparison between a diesel bin lorry and a leccy bin lorry at https://cliscep.com/2022/08/21/on-the-diesel-hgv-ban/
But look at how much of the actual price at the pump is TAX.
>>diesel is more expensive that electricity
Utter cobblers, Pete.
The ‘less moving parts’ bit is a red herring as you can exclude the engine since how often these day does anything need changing inside other than oil and filter. Battery vehicles still have brakes, steering, suspension, wheel bearings all of which have to work much harder as the base vehicle is much heavier and are likely to wear out quicker, as many owners have found with their tyres failing at the first MOT!!
@sceptical Sam. Thanks. Battery replacement in 8 years will indeed never make any electric truck more cost-efficient compared to diesel trucks.
“This work is behind schedule, partly due to a power outage….”
“The result was staggering’: How York took its Clean Air Zone in a different direction to Bradford, Sheffield and Greater Manchester – YorkshireLive” https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/the-result-staggering-how-york-22781455
Like Bristol, scams are dreamt up to fleece the motorist of older ice vehicles. Presently £9 a day here. Hitting citizens, small businesses and visitors hard. What’s more, like York it is all premature. The air quality is within government limits.
* sorry it is presently £9 a day per car if it is deemed too old.
Vans and lorries are even more expensive.
What’s happened to the rubbish they were collecting?
The rubbish collected in Bristol is planned to be burned. Allegedly to produce heat for a district heatin project.
“Bristol’s district heat networks could be fuelled by burning rubbish in incinerator – Bristol Live” https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristols-district-heat-networks-could-7901650
But there are problems :-
‘Many councils are trying to extract themselves from contracts with these rubbish burners because they will find it increasingly difficult to source enough rubbish to meet the contractual volume. Perversely they are removing waste from the recycling stream so they can meet contracts which is a poor environmental option. ‘
The price is cheap. Brighton and Hove paid £580k each for electric bin lorries compared to £325k for diesel. That’s before grants and running costs should save the difference over the Life of the vehicles (they say). Comparison with a Transit is silly.
No, these are not bin lorries, Bob.
Take a closer look at the picture, and they are just trucks used for “general litter collection”:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1718912/council-york-electric-bin-lorries-charge
Little more than a Transit pick up truck , with a cage on the back
Oops! My bad. RTFM!
The report says ’25 vehicles out of what’s arrived’, so the bill must be for a greater number?
Update – the Express reports…
A spokesperson for York Council told a local paper: “Our ambitious EV strategy has delivered 39 new electric vehicles to the council including the two electric waste vehicles.
“Thirteen of these are in operational use by the services, 15 are in the yard in the process of being deployed and 15 are at Harewood Whin awaiting deployment.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1718912/council-york-electric-bin-lorries-charge
NB 13+15+15 = 43 not 39 🤔
The front vehicle is reg no LJ72HXA – check it out on the gov’t VED/MOT site and that shows it as a Fiat Ducato pick up style. Tops for the diesel model is £35,000 for just one.
Possible confusion due to Michael Murphy’s reporting.
Cllr Watson flags up 25 ev trucks out of what’s arrived have been hidden away.
Towards the end of this article a council spokesman states –
13 ev trucks are in operation,
25 ev trucks are yet to be deployed (hidden away),
15 yet to be brought into play
So is that 53 divided into £6.5 million ?
Having read the Express article it says EV strategy has delivered 39 new vehicles including two electric waste vehicles.
It says 15 in yard and being deployed
and 15 waiting.
So where are the other 9 ?
I’m lost because even one is surely one too many.
Bob, Greater Cambridge paid £400,000 for each of their electrics and the comparative price for a diesel was given as £185,000. Has Brighton been fleeced? (Even more than Greater Cambridge?)
Diesel one would be about 40K at a guess.
Yes, that’s about right TF. Range 350+miles, re-charge (with diesel) time 15mins max – including taking a l**k and buying coffee and a sarnie. Happy days!
It seems nigh-on impossible to get any firm pricing info from the Mfrs of EV 3.5t vans like those in the photo. Their glossy website presentations are full of gushing, virtue-signalling guff, but no ‘meat & gravy’. I suspect that they have to think you’re ready to sign up before the full costs are revealed…. but, hey, you’re saving the planet too! The Ducati (Fiat) vehicles like those pictured now have either a 142 or 230 mile (theoretical) range depending on the battery installed. In real life, say 75% of that, esp. in cold wet weather. York’s specially modded vehicles are probably not the newest models and will likely already have devalued very considerably – and bearing in mind the ‘camel being a ctte-designed horse’ mantra, they’re probably only of interest to a similar end-user. I don’t think there’ll be a queue after this kind of exposé!
More power to Cllr Waters elbow, I say…
Hi John, I noticed the reg no (LJ72XHA) of one from the Yorkshire Post pic and checked it on the government Tax/MOT website. It is a Fiat E Ducato.
According to Parkers
“At the time of writing (January 2023), the Fiat E-Ducato is priced from £56,625 excluding VAT for the cheapest 47kWh version. It costs more than a Mercedes-Benz eSprinter but the Fiat comes with considerately greater capability. That’s before the application of the UK government Plug-in Van Grant (PIVG), incidentally.
Want the 79kWh version? Then you’re looking at a minimum of £69,125 without the PiVG. Upgrading from the standard 3,500kg gross vehicle weight (GVW) to the higher 4,250kg GVW costs £2,800.”
There is probably an additional premium for the caging but not much so there very clearly is something not quite right here.
Oh what tales of electric vehicles at said Council I could divulge….
Let’s just say that there a 2 more unmentioned EVs which are, ” in service, ” when they actually work. And by the way, nothing to do with chargers.
Ah I understand. Go on you can tell!!! Which council executive’s wives are now driving around in a newly acquired Fiat 500e?
Sunderland (my council) has a proper bin wagon on trial.
“The vehicle has cost £423,000 – including a contribution of £120,000 from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The trial will be comparing the Dennis eRCV against that of an identical conventional diesel one to look at how they perform against each other.”
I do not know the outcome of the trial, it started in 2021. I will see if I can find out.
The York costs do not seem to add up for the little trucks that are in the photo, maybe they thought they were getting proper compacting bin wagons! Has all the hallmarks of of ineptitude (polite way of saying corruption).
Geoff, if you do find out, I would be grateful if you could post a comment at my Cliscep link above.
Brighton found out that the battery trucks could only do half the round before needing a recharge, so effectively they need twice as many very expensive battery trucks for the same work. And the claim from the York moron of them being more ‘eco-friendly’ is, of course, highly debatable. You don’t have to be thick to work for our councils but it certainly helps.
Let’s pretend that these vehicles are out doing their job. How long for?
Next who has done the sums on capacity?
All vehicles back to depot for overnight charge. Which substation can provide the power? Are they planning small nuclear plant to provide?
Charging stations for EVs are little different from installing solar and wind “farms”. Conventional ICE vehicles are used. They, of course run on the fossil fuels we are supposed to rid ourselves of by 2050. Something’s wrong with the plan?
I think the council identify 13+15+15 vehicles = 43
So at £6.25 million that’s about £145k per vehicle.
An IVECO Daily 2.3D similar to that on a 72 plate with delivery mileage is about £48k (not including VAT). Seems a bit of a premium for an EV….
https://www.parkers.co.uk/vans-pickups/iveco/daily/for-sale/
When operating hauling weighty stuff about the range will drop dramatically.
Also standing there unused with presumably depleted batteries, wont they cause damage to the cells and also possibly the ECU modules etc.
They need to keep them in charged condition I would have thought.
Even on regular ICE vehicles, running around on an end of life low volt battery can cause future issues with the ECU
Hey, Brits! Its only OPM. The Council members are feted about and flattered such that they feel good by “investing” citizen’s money in virtual signaling.
Don’t feel lonely: Brandon and his minions also have us by the testicals.
BTW, my logo is a picture of a Purple Heart, awarded to me for wounds received in combat.
You Brits should recognize the person depicted as the guy who led in kicking you out of a chunk of North America.
Who’s paying for the chargers and linked infrastructure? Me?
Slightly off topic but the scumbags at the Graun are at it again. Try this one for an insult to the intelligence. apparently the likes of us posting on here are all swivel eyed loon conspiracy theorists. Oxford (and Canterbury) are the way forward.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2023/jan/10/why-do-traffic-reduction-schemes-attract-so-many-conspiracy-theories
Read the comments…just to prove how up themselves they are, the article’s author also gets two “picks” in the comments.
“…swivel eyed loon conspiracy theorists…”
Are swivel eyed loons superior to the common loon?
The Audubon Society was very interested to record me. I think I sound good!
https://www.audubon.org/news/hear-hauntingly-beautiful-call-common-loon
Paul
If diesel those trucks would be no more than £40k and council doesn’t pay VAT.
What an abominable waste of ratepayers money.
Cheers
Tim
Sent from my iPad
Just out of interest, what was the publication, and when was it published ?
Old York in Yorkshire, same politics and money sense as New York, wherever that is ?
New York? That’s where Old York went to die.
O/T
This is why they are the largest car manufacturer in the world—–They think reality,, ??
This certainly is food for thought!
Japan’s Toyota — is currently the world’s largest automaker. Toyota and Volkswagen vie for that title each year — each taking the crown from the other — as the market moves.
GM — America’s largest automaker — is about half Toyota’s size –thanks to its 2009 bankruptcy and restructuring.
Actually — Toyota is a major car manufacturer in the U.S. In 2016 about 81% of the cars it sold in the U.S. came off American assembly lines.
Toyota was among the first to introduce gas/electric hybrid cars with the Prius twenty years ago. The company hasn’t been afraid to change the car game.
All of this is to point out that Toyota understands both the car market and the infrastructure that supports the car market. Probably understands better than any other manufacturer on the planet.
Toyota hasn’t grown through acquisitions as Volkswagen has, and it hasn’t undergone bankruptcy and bailout as GM has. Toyota has grown by building reliable cars and trucks for decades.
When Toyota offers an opinion on the car market it’s probably worth listening to.
This week Toyota reiterated — The world is not yet ready to support a fully electric auto fleet.
Toyota’s Robert Wimmer (head of energy & environmental research) said this week in testimony before the U.S. Senate, “If we are to make dramatic progress in electrification it will require overcoming tremendous challenges – challenges including : refueling infrastructure/battery availability /consumer acceptance / and affordability.”
Wimmer’s remarks come on the heels of GM’s announcement that it will phase out all gas internal combustion engines (ICE) by 2035.
Tellingly, both Toyota and Honda have so far declined to make any such promises. Honda is the world’s largest engine manufacturer (when you include : boats / motorcycles / lawnmowers / etc) Honda competes with Briggs & Stratton in those markets amid increased electrification of [traditionally gas powered] lawnmowers / weed trimmers /etc
While manufacturers have announced ambitious goals just 2% of the world’s cars are electric at this point.
Buyers continue to choose ICE over electric because of: price /range / infrastructure /affordability / etc. Only a small percentage of people would choose an electric car unless forced to buy
There are 289.5 million cars just on U.S. roads as of 2021. About 98 percent of them are gas-powered.
Toyota’s RAV4 took the top spot for purchases in the 2019 U.S market — Honda’s CR-V is second and GM’s top seller (Equinox) comes in at #4 behind the Nissan Rogue. GM only has one entry in the U.S.top 15. Toyota and Honda dominate – each with a handful in the top 15.
Toyota warns: the US electrical grid and infrastructure simply aren’t there to support the electrification of the private car fleet.
A 2017 U.S. government study found we would need about 8,500 strategically-placed charging stations to support a fleet of just 7 million electric cars.
That’s about six times the current number of electric cars.
But no one should be talking about supporting just 7 million cars.
We should be talking about powering about 300 million within the next 20 years if all manufacturers follow GM and stop making ICE cars.
We are gonna need a bigger energy boat to deal with connecting all those cars to the power grids – a WHOLE LOT bigger boat
But instead of building a bigger boat we may be shrinking our boat. Power outages in California and Texas have exposed issues with power supplies even at current usage levels.
Increasing usage of wind and solar, — both of which prove unreliable — has driven some coal and natural gas generators offline.
We will need much more generation capacity to power about 300 million cars if we’re all going to be forced to drive electric cars, and we will be charging them frequently. Every roadside gas station must be wired to charge electric cars and charging speeds must increase greatly
Current technology allows charges in “as little as 30 minutes” – but that best-case fast charging cannot be done on home power. Charging at home (on alternating current) takes a few hours and undoubtedly will increase the home power bill.
That power, like all electricity in the United States, comes from generators using: natural gas /petroleum/coal/nuclear/wind/solar/or hydroelectric sources.
Even half an hour is an unacceptably long time to spend charging. It’s about 5 to 10 times longer than a gas pump takes. Imagine big rigs with much larger tanks. Imagine the charging lines that would form every day if charge time isn’t reduced by 70 to 80 percent
We can expect improvements but those won’t come without cost. Electrifying the auto fleet requires massive overhaul of the power grid and an enormous increase in power generation.
Toyota has publicly warned about this twice while its smaller rival GM is pushing to go electric. GM may be trying to win favor with those in power in California/ Washington / and in the media.
Toyota’s addressing reality, and they know what they are talking about.
Toyota isn’t saying none of this can be done. They are saying that conversations are not anywhere near serious and will not produce meaningful results.
Ron
I agree – Toyota have called it right. And they also have large (and likely growing) markets in Africa and Middle East.
Because we own and tow a large (modern, not vintage) American Airstream trailer weighing 2.65 tons I have for the last 9 years driven a Landrover Discovery 4, a very capable towing vehicle. No EV in my remaining lifetime is ever likely to be available capable of towing that, nor with any practical range (even towing that I can go 300 miles on a full tank and a 20 litre metal fuel can in the boot gives me a further 90 miles reserve). Sadly Landrover have now priced themselves into luxury car sales only so my next car won’t be a LR.
If the threat of banning new ICE sales from 2030 goes ahead my options are:
(a) The Cuba model of maintaining an old large diesel
(b) Purchase a new large 3.0 litre diesel around 2028 with 3.5 ton towing capacity
Double cab pickups are one option. VW has stopped building the Amarok to switch production to the ID electric van. Mercedes and Ford have withdrawn their old 3.0D engines and now produce a 2.0D with twin turbo (that sounds nasty for heavy duty towing). What did Toyota do? They upgraded the 2.5D engine in the Hilux to a 3.0D, definitely an option given (a) competitive pricing and (b) outstanding reliability.
The other option I am considering is the INEOS Grenadier powered by 3.0 litre diesel BMW straight six. When I asked INEOS about the 2030 ban they said the plans were not for electric but for hydrogen…if at all.
Toyota tend to be the vehicle of choice in Australia for minesites, pipelines and similar work.
Tough and reliable
And a Toyota Hi-Lux is indestructible as they proved on Top Gear a few years back.
For towing the Toyota landcruiser is great, but pricey. Look at the Nissan Shogun 3litre. Can do the job and much cheaper than toyota.
This is where I got my quote from for diesel Ford Transits inorder to find a guide price for comparison before Ray identified these white elephants.
Cheapest New Ford Transit Dropside | UK Vans Direct” https://www.ukvansdirect.co.uk/Ford/Transit-Dropside
After the £6.5 million York council spent on the vehicles; an additional £1.5 million is reported as being ear marked for the new, as yet unavailable, new charging stations.
Cllr. Mark Warters says the van drivers have previously always taken their vans home. Aiding the 5 or 5.30 am start.
It sounds like this will no longer be possible due to lack of charging point availability at the drivers’ homes.
Requiring drivers and crew computing to the yard (truck).
Not only resulting in earlier start times for crews but they may have to commute through Clean Air Zones. Adding substantially to the cost of getting to work (always assuming they own a private vehicle).
The council have to do this virtue signalling after insisting buses, taxis and everybody else joins in this mad pointless dance.
Mad because of the shear expense. Pointless because the air quality in York has been deemed clean enough already.
(As reported in local newspaper, see earlier link.)
Still none of this explains how the figure of £6.5 million was reached – even with a couple of councillors’ wifes getting a new car along the way. But then perhaps they all did ?!
Except Cllr. Mark Warters – whose nose has been seriously put out of joint…
And there is more.
https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/electric-bin-lorry-keeps-breaking-7908994
The word “invested” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
The air in York may be OK for now, but wait until they issue new rules. They keep lowering the bar in order to ban things by regulation. Just as the EPA does in the US for coal plants.
Further to all the above, this article from 2020 makes some further interesting points and also alludes to the current (then future) purchase and details more costs.
https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/18488574.new-bin-lorries-costing-3-million-ordered-york-council/
Note “The purchase of two fully electric 26T rear steer narrow chassis with single cell and split or commercial bin lift – estimated purchase price of £500k per unit, estimated total £1m.”
Am I losing my perspective on reality or isn’t £half a million for a rubbish (literally) track rather expensive? Would a private concern be paying so much?
This line “The council has approved funding of £6.6m for the replacement of 28 waste vehicles.” ties in with the above but exactly how many vehiclesare we actually talking about?
I’ve come to the conclusion that there may well be an undisclosed number already in the garage due to breakdowns.
After reading that report of EV bin lorries from Somerset I reckon there’s a good chance the two in York might be amongst them.
There needs to be a law that all vehicles owned/operated by government, council, police and other public authorities are not allowed to use proper reliable diesel and petrol vehicles at all. Perhaps one, maximum two weeks of that would make them see sense and stop trying to force EVs on everybody.
Silly woke trucks are not the only things grounded!
Most US planes are sitting on the ground today because of a catastrophic breakdown (otherwise known as a teeny-weeny ‘glitch’) in the FAA’s computers.
What has it got to do with ‘woke’?
Well, the problem has something to do with ‘Notices to Air Missions,’ which are essential to operations and are now a broken system. Until recently these were known as ‘Notices to Air MEN;’ but this did not go down well with the barbarian hordes of the Femi-Nazis and their emasculated slaves everywhere.
The name change complies with the Federal Womens Program and became effective on Dec 2, 2021. However the word ‘effective does not seem to apply to the actual functioning of the FAA.
My wife is a private pilot and tells me that in England these notices are just called NOTAM and have been for ever. As far as she is concerned, the M stands for ‘menopausal woman.’
She just looked it up and found that our beloved (useless) CAA, at some unknown time, changed the name to “Notice to Aviation (NOTAM)” which is ‘complying but not complying with the one-world bullies,’ if you get my drift.
Still trying to figure out how many vehicles were brought.
My guesstimate now is 43. Though in this local news item we get an ariel photo which shows both trucks and vans.
Plus I read somewhere that two vehicles were rubbish bin lorries.
Still not convinced it all justified a bill of £6.5 million.
Should have stuck with diesel.
York council accused of hiding 25 electric bin wagons as they had nowhere to charge them – YorkshireLive” https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/york-council-accused-hiding-25-25937467?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#comments-wrapper