PORTLAND, Maine — With extreme heat bearing down on the state and a promise of more to come as our climate warms, the city took possession of Maine’s first zero-emission, electric garbage truck on Monday.
The blue and white Mack LRE Packer is the city’s 11th all-electric vehicle — eight cars and two pickup trucks — out of a fleet of over 100. Mayor Mark Dion said the truck represents a step toward the city’s goal of using 100 percent clean energy for operations by 2040.
“We’ve got a long way to go,” said Portland Sustainability Director Troy Moon, “but we’ve got to start somewhere and this is the first piece of heavy equipment to become available.”
City officials said the truck is not only good for the environment, but a bargain purchase, too. They also expect it will be cheaper to operate than a regular, diesel-powered garbage truck.
The big electric rig, made in Pennsylvania, lists for $683,852 compared with about $350,000 for the diesel version. However, the Maine Department of Environmental Services helped secure grant funding for the truck from the Volkswagen Settlement Fund and the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act. The final cost to the city was just $148,074.
Tyler Ohlmansiek, Mack’s director of e-mobility sales, was on hand to pass the keys to Dion and City Manager Danielle West. He also touted the truck’s specs: two motors, four battery packs and 458 horsepower.
Asked how that compares to a normal diesel truck, he said it “blows them away.”
Ohlmansiek also said the electric garbage truck is designed with the capacity to go 100 miles, operate 10 hours and go through 800 to 900 compaction cycles on a single, overnight charge. Its batteries are liquid cooled on hot days. On days when the temperature dips below zero degrees, the batteries will only lose 10 percent of capacity.
“And it has regenerative braking,” Moon said, meaning every time the brakes are applied, the still-turning wheels generate a small amount of charge for the batteries.
City sanitation worker James Johnson has been testing the truck and said it operated basically the same as the diesel trucks he’s used to working with and doesn’t anticipate any problems.
“When I used to drive a cab, we used electric cars,” Johnson said. “This’ll be fine.”
To help draw attention to the truck, Portland is holding a naming contest. The top five names submitted to the city website will go out for a public vote later in the year.
Dion is hoping his granddaughter will submit a suggestion.
“She collects two kinds of little cars, fire trucks and trash trucks,” he said. “I want kids to flood us with suggestions.”
Dion did note one potential problem with the truck. It’s too quiet.
“When I hear the truck coming, that’s usually my signal to race out with my trash bags,” he said.
