BYD Refuse Truck Will Save Operators $13,000 Per Year In Fuel & Maintenance

By Kyle Field on Clean Technica, 4 May 2017

Read that again. $10,000 per year in savings just by driving a different vehicle. It also comes with a hefty improvement in maintenance costs with another $3,000 saved on maintenance per year. This is a result of the reduction in parts required to move the vehicle around coming from the simplified electric drivetrain. Regenerative brakes support this by reducing the wear and tear on pads and rotors.

The new vehicle builds on the electric BYD trucks that were launched last year and represents the start of a flood of purpose-built electric trucks coming from BYD. The trucks make use of BYD’s proprietary iron phosphate battery technology, which is built to last longer but at the cost of a slightly heavier pack than more traditional 18650 lithium ion cell-based packs.

The new 10-ton payload trash truck can achieve 76 miles per charge with minimal battery degradation. These trucks are some of the first to roll off of the new production lines at BYD’s recently expanded Lancaster, California, Bus and Coach Factory. It complies with all Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) and Canada Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (CMVSS) to ensure maximum adoption in the North American Market.

Low speed, high torque vehicles with lots of starts and stops throughout the day, like mail delivery vehicles, parcel delivery vehicles, city buses, and refuse trucks with relatively predictable routes or fixed zones of operation, represent prime targets for electrification, as the vehicles can be purpose-built with en-route charging or perfectly sized batteries to maximize the financial returns for operators. Seeing BYD move into these spaces with intention is exciting and bodes well for increased fleet adoption in the North American market.

While it comes with a compelling set of figures, it is sure to be an uphill fight for BYD to move in on trash haulers with a new set of gear that’s going to have a higher cost up front. Educating operators about the fundamentals of electric vehicles, charging systems, new maintenance best practices and schedules are just a few of the real world challenges the team is faced with. But BYD continues to move forward. The silent giant in the world of plug-in vehicles doesn’t listen to the doubters, but it does keep taking orders and with each new order, continues to widen its lead as the top-selling plug-in vehicle manufacturer in the world.

The full specs on the new vehicle are below. Let us know what you think about this new entry down in the comments.

Marie Venner • a day ago Can anyone say how much these way, compared to combustion/diesel vehicles? My city is considering weight impact on roads.

Also, is it possible to get info on noise relative to a standard vehicle (quite noisy!)

Robert Pollock • 8 hours ago

Depending on the weight of a full tank of fuel, the “Dry weight” of an electric garbage truck and a ICE truck should be pretty close. The weight of the battery (180 kwh is probably a thousand pounds) off sets the weight of the engine and drive line.

I’m guessing an all aluminum frame would save loads of weight on big trucks, if it works on cars.

I’d bet that the robot engineers at Tesla would have a field day robotizing the garbage trucks. Low speed, should be easy to do without squishing too many citizens. Take out the driver and his compensation package, make the truck collect garbage without polluting and using solar power for ten years or more, and the cost of keeping our communities garbage free would be quite affordable.

Steve Hanley • a day ago

Noise from the powertrain will be virtually eliminated. All those cans and bottles will still make a racket when they get poured into the hopper, though!

Kyle, what can you tell us about weight?

Ninjaneerd Steve Hanley • a day ago

Curb weight: 21,680 lbs

Gross weight: 57,500 lbs

Payload: 18,820 lbs

Very interesting, there are more companies developing EVs for this segment so there will be more competition and more options which is a win for everybody

As for this particular vehicle the 28% grade climbing is quite impressive. I’m also impressed that it only needs 178kWh of juice, less then two Tesla 100Ds.

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