Electric garbage trucks will collect trash and recycling in Northern California this summer using an electric engine system developed by Tesla co-founder Ian Wright and his company, Wrightspeed.
Wright tells National Geographic he expects to he’ll recoup cost to retrofit the 17 trucks — $125,00 to $175,000 per truck — via fuel and maintenance savings within three years.
Wright says a typical garbage truck gets only 2.8 miles per gallon: “It’s so much stop and go that they’re very inefficient.” He says trucks using his system will be able to travel 30 percent farther.
Also this week Tesla announced it will market energy storage systems to homeowners, businesses and utilities.
