Wide load! Extra thick four-wheeled electric cargo bikes to replace trucks in New York
A proposed rule update in New York will pave the way for four-wheeled electric cargo bikes, which look like small delivery vans with bicycle pedals, to share the bike lanes and roads.
Four-wheeled electric cargo bikes are commonly used across Asia and Europe, often for last mile delivery. They’re larger than typical e-bikes but much smaller than box trucks and delivery vans used in the US for last mile delivery jobs.
They usually consist of a rear cargo box on a larger platform cargo bike frame, and use bicycle pedals paired with standard mid-drive motors common across most electric cargo bikes. Thus, while they may look like a shrunken delivery van, they’re still operated like an electric bicycle.
Most bicycle laws in the US require either two or three wheels to be legally classified as a bicycle, and thus four-wheeled e-bikes have yet to catch on in the country. But if the New York City Department of Transportation gets its way, those useful last mile delivery bikes will finally be coming to the Big Apple.
The proposal hopes to use the four-wheeled cargo e-bikes to make deliveries safer and more sustainable by reducing the number of delivery trucks on New York City streets.
Mayor Eric Adams, who has been a proponent of increased micromobility in NYC, explained how the use of these larger electric cargo bikes will help improve the city:
“Safety and sustainability go hand in hand in New York City, and our administration is innovating every day and using every tool available to advance both. Cargo bikes have been a valuable tool in our administration’s efforts to move goods throughout the city while prioritizing street safety and our environment, and these pedal-assist cargo bikes will help New Yorkers get the items they need while reducing carbon emissions and traffic congestion — and getting dangerous trucks off our streets.”
NYC DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez further detailed the impact of using cargo e-bikes instead of box trucks:
“Greater use of cargo bikes will bring incredible environmental and safety benefits for New York City by reducing the number of large, high-polluting trucks on our streets. Just two cargo bikes can replace one box truck, increasing safety and reducing CO2 emission by 14 tons per year — equivalent to 30,872 passenger car miles traveled.”
In order to allow for these types of cargo e-bikes, the NYC DOT will have to update current laws. Electric cargo bikes used on NYC’s streets and bike lanes have previously been limited to a width of just 36 inches (91 cm) and no more than three wheels. According to the NYC DOT, the updated rule would “expand low or no-emission options for freight deliveries — including packages and groceries — by allowing the use of pedal-assist bicycles that may be up to 48 inches [122 cm] wide and have up to four wheels.”
The rule proposal isn’t final, and the city has just opened a 30-day public comment period. The NYC DOT will hold a virtual public hearing on the proposed rule on September 13, 2023.
Cargo bikes have seen rapid expansion in NYC where they are frequently used for commercial deliveries.
Since the launch of the NYC DOT’s Commercial Cargo Bike pilot program back in 2019, cargo bike deliveries have skyrocketed in the city. In 2022, cargo bikes made more than 130,000 trips delivering over 5 million packages. That resulted in the reduction of over 650,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions and demonstrated the effectiveness of cargo bikes as a last-mile delivery mode.
NYC is leading the US with hundreds of thousands of cargo e-bike trips per year and millions of deliveries, yet is still playing catchup compared to cargo e-bike deliveries in Europe and Asia. But just as the consumer e-bike market in the US has followed years behind the rest of the world, it appears that the North American commercial cargo e-bike market is finally joining the modern age of urban delivery as well.
Electrek’s Take
It’s about time! This is wonderful news for anyone who lives in NYC and uses the road (no matter what type of vehicle you use). But it’s also great for anyone who breathes air and lives within roughly 12,500 miles (20,000 km) of NYC.
The only downside here is that some cyclists are going to be annoyed about sharing the bike lane with what are effectively bike vans. And I get it. The bike lane is an area to efficiently slip through the city, and getting stuck behind a wide bike is going to be annoying. But you know what’s worse? Getting run over by a box truck. At least when an overworked and underpaid FedEx driver parks a four-wheeled e-bike in the bike lane, you can still pedal around it.
Also, this is basically going to become the new normal so we better get used to it. Just as it’s annoying to get stuck behind a truck on the road when you’re driving, it’s going to be annoying to get stuck behind a big bike in the bike lane. But in the same way that we still acknowledge the truck’s right to use the road, we have to acknowledge the right of bigger bikes to use the bike lanes. This is all for the greater good, which is reducing the use of heavy and dangerous delivery vans/trucks in our cities. If Amsterdam’s e-bikes of all sizes can co-exist, we can make it happen too. And if this helps push the city to continue its expansion of bike lanes, then all the better.
via: Gothamist
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The latest hybrid telehandler from New Holland packs a range-extending combustion engine to boost its battery power during longer shifts – but it doesn’t run on gas or diesel. Instead, this farm-friendly machine is built to run on METHANE.
By collecting pig, cow, or poultry waste (poop), silage waste (corn husks and grass clippings), and food waste from composting and putting into a manure digester, farmers can generate valuable biogas – a renewable, low-carbon fuel that can be burned for heat, electricity, or used as fuel. And because large farming operations can produce huge amounts of biogas at an incredibly low cost compared to conventional grid and fuel costs, any machine that can run on biogas is going to have a real total cost of ownership (TCO) advantage.
Biogas generator
CASE and New Holland (collectively, CNH) understands its customers’ desire to put that biogas to good use. They also understand that nothing is quite as efficient as battery-electric power, though; but big farms have weird duty cycles: 4-6 hour shifts most of the year, then critical, un-skippable, non-negotiable round-the-clock running during harvest.
That need to run 24 hour shifts limits the appeal of pure electric machines, and has led to companies like ZQUIP developing power-agnostic modules that swap-out, power tool-style, to keep the machines going. With its new methane hybrid, New Holland is going a more recognizable EREV and hybrid route.
“With this prototype, New Holland shows its continuous commitment to the ‘Clean Energy Leader‘ strategy, building on our leadership in alternative fuel machines,” says Marco Gerbi, New Holland T4 and T5 tractor, loader and telehandler product management. “Our aim is to help our customers boost farm productivity and profitability by broadening our range of alternative fuel machines that do not compromise efficiency or productivity yet help to minimize agriculture’s carbon footprint.”
Primarily driven by a 70 kWh lithium-ion battery, the telehandler uses a methane-fueled version of Fiat Powertrain’s four-cylinder F28 engine as a range-extending backup whenever jobs demand more uptime. On the energy stored in the battery alone, New Holland says the machine can handle a full day’s worth of typical farm work — roughly a “350-day duty cycle,” and it can recharge from the grid, a biogas generator, or even rooftop (barntop?) solar.
It’s still just a prototype, but New Holland claims the hybrid setup cuts fuel use by up to 70% compared to a conventional diesel telehandler while delivering 30% better performance and uptime for its operators.
No word yet on availability and pricing.
New Holland methane hybrid gallery
SOURCE | IMAGES: CNH, via Equipment World.
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Environment
Elon Musk’s Boring Company has work crew in Nashville walk off job over unpaid bills and safety
The Boring Company, Elon Musk’s tunneling startup, is reportedly facing significant issues with its new project in Nashville, Tennessee. A key subcontractor has walked off the job, alleging that the company has failed to pay for work completed on the “Music City Loop,” claiming they have received only 5% of what they are owed.
We have been following The Boring Company’s expansion efforts closely.
After the relative success of the Las Vegas Loop and several projects that failed to materialize, it looked like the company was winding down until a new proposal in Nashville gained some momentum.
However, a new report from the Nashville Banner indicates that the project is hitting a major wall.
Shane Trucking and Excavating, a local contractor hired to handle preliminary work for the tunnel project, pulled its workers off the site this Monday. William Shane, the owner of the company, told the Banner that The Boring Company has “ghosted” them and failed to pay invoices totaling in the six figures.
According to Shane, the payment terms were initially set for every 15 days, then unilaterally switched to 60 days. Now, he claims it has been over 120 days since they broke ground, and his company has received only a fraction of the payment due.
“We were really skeptical from the beginning, and then since then, things pretty much just went downhill,” Shane said.
The contractor was reportedly responsible for preparing the launch pad for “Prufrock,” The Boring Company’s proprietary tunnel boring machine (TBM). We previously reported on Prufrock’s capabilities, with the company claiming it can dig tunnels significantly faster than conventional machines, supposedly porpoising directly from the surface to avoid digging expensive launch pits.
If the launch pad isn’t finished because the excavator wasn’t paid, Prufrock isn’t digging anywhere.
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of payment issues involving Musk-led companies. Tesla has been known to not pay its bills, leading to small companies going bankrupt.
As The Boring Company was stiffing Shane on the bills, the company tried to poach workers from its own contractor and lied about it:
“One of their head guys texts two of my welders, offering them a job for $45 an hour from his work phone,” Shane described, noting that the same TBC employee denied sending the texts when confronted with screenshots. “That’s actually a breach of contract.”
On top of the missed payments, Shane alleges serious safety concerns. They made several official complaints to OSHA:
“Where we’re digging, we’re so far down, there should be concrete and different structures like that to hold the slope back from falling on you while you’re working. Where most people use concrete, they currently have — I’m not even kidding — they currently have wood. They had us install wood 2x12s.”
The Boring Company Vice President David Buss blamed missed payments on “invoicing errors” in a statement to the Banner:
“It does look like we had some invoicing errors on that. It was, you know, unfortunately, too common of a thing, but I assured them that we are going to make sure that invoices are wired tomorrow.”
He also said that he would look into the poaching allegations, but added that he is not aware of any OSHA complaints.
The “Music City Loop” was pitched as a solution to connect downtown Nashville to the airport, a route that is notoriously congested.
The Boring Company claims it can complete the project without public money, but there are some obvious issues with its financing.
Electrek’s Take
I’ve been willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on the “Loop” concept. While it falls short of the original “autonomous pods” vision or the “Hyperloop” speed dreams, the system in Las Vegas does work to move people, even if it is just Teslas in tunnels driven by humans.
There’s just no evidence that it would be more efficient than any other public transit system.
When Musk launched The Boring Company’s first test tunnel in LA, I asked him if he had any simulations showing his “loop” system to be more efficient. He said that they were working on that. That was 7 years ago.
Therefore, while The Boring Company appears to have achieved marginal improvements in tunnel boring, mainly when it comes to smaller tunnels; it has yet to show clear evidence that its Loop system is a better solution than any other public transit system.
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