[cepth]

Given that a typical garbage truck weighs 25+ short tons (https://www.reference.com/world-view/much-garbage-truck-weig...), it seems likely that you start to run into the legal limits for local roads.

E.g. in NYC (https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/motorist/sizewt.shtml), the max weight for any vehicle is 80,000 lbs, likely much less if you’re the length of a typical garbage truck.

Can you really go electric? A 2016 bullish Quartz article (https://qz.com/749622/the-economics-of-electric-garbage-truc...) says the typical garbage truck travels 130 miles a day. Unclear what the additional weight of a capable battery pack would be, even after accounting for the saved weight by removing what must be a pretty hefty combustion engine. It’s certainly interesting that the company (Wrightspeed) profiled in the article seems to be doing more than just garbage trucks now. Their Route 1000 powertrain/platform only quotes 24 miles of pure EV range (https://www.wrightspeed.com/the-route-powertrain), so it seems like there are certainly trade offs between range and weight regulations.

I imagine once long and medium haul trucks make it to market (perhaps Tesla or Volvo), maybe we can say we’ve reached the energy densities in packs that make hauling around weight equivalent to an 18 wheeler possible at a reasonable cost.

Other reasons that maybe no one has done this already:

* Garbage trucks cost $250k+ (https://bigtruckrental.com/front-loader-garbage-truck-rental...). I’m guessing there are regulatory requirements around collision safety, and maybe longevity requirements that become a factor.

* Given that a brand new sleeper semi goes for 50% less (https://youngtrucks.com/new-trucks/2020-volvo-vnl64t860-860-...), there are probably significant costs not typical of a combustion engine vehicle. Maybe those front loading bins require powerful pneumatics, or those on-vehicle compactors need to be able to exert tremendous amounts of force, and so on and so on.

* How large is the market for garbage trucks? Some press release claimed that the global garbage truck market in 2019 was ~$22 billion (https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/07/29/206925...). If we use a unit price of $250k (probably on the low end), that would mean only ~88000 total units sold globally. Of course, I’m sure different countries may have larger and smaller trucks, but you get the gist.

* The customers for these trucks are likely to be municipal governments and a handful of private waste management companies (https://craft.co/waste-management/competitors). I think it’d be a huge risk to build out a plant to put together a garbage truck, have maybe a few hundred plausible decisions makers to pitch on the product, and potentially risk burning hundreds of millions in capital between labor, regulatory certification, endurance testing, battery pack development, power train development, etc.

[bigbubba]

They would surely use hydraulics not pneumatics, but this is a good point. Garbage trucks are half truck, half front end loader. And loaders aren't exactly cheap either.

[rwmj]

Thanks - very interesting answer.