We drove Battle Motors’ awesome electric garbage truck on a racetrack
Battle Motors invited us out to Irwindale Speedway to drive its powerful electric garbage trucks around the racetrack, and we came away dreaming of quieter, cleaner neighborhoods that feel like they’re just around the corner.
Garbage trucks have been considered ripe for electrification for some time now, as the duty cycle of a garbage truck lines up very well with the strengths of electric vehicles. They do a lot of starting and stopping, which means the regenerative braking and lack of idling on an EV are beneficial. They carry a lot of weight, meaning they need ample low-end torque. And they do predictable daily routes before heading back to a depot, ensuring a place to charge and allowing buyers to right-size the battery based on route length.
In the face of new truck regulations both on the California state and US federal levels, the rush to electrify heavy-duty vehicles has never been more urgent.
Battle Motors is a relatively new player, but in 2021, it acquired Crane Carrier Company, which has operated since 1946, building chassis for construction, refuse collection, and other industries. The company now has a full slate of electric chassis/cab combinations for “vocational” applications.
So far, Battle Motors has sold EV trucks to the cities of Los Angeles, New York, and Plano, Texas. EVs have made up about 5% of its sales this year, but it expects EVs to make up 20% of sales next year.
The event was put on by Velocity Truck Centers, a commercial truck dealer network that serves the Southwest US and distributes Battle Motors’ electric trucks. (We also drove Battle Motors’ all-electric street sweeper at the same event.)
And sure, track performance doesn’t matter for a garbage truck, but these vehicles do need a lot of power and can benefit from being more nimble, not needing to shift through so many gears, not slowing down traffic on city streets when going to and from the depot, and so on.
There is, unfortunately, still a persistent feeling among some crowds that electric motors don’t have enough power for heavy-duty applications (which couldn’t be further from the truth – the heaviest-duty applications, like freight trains, cruise ships, and mining trucks will often use electric drive, just fueled by diesel generators), so demo days like this are useful for fleet operators to get some hands-on experience.
Battle Motors’ trucks have either a 240 or 400 kWh battery and 442-570 horsepower, depending on configuration. Range depends on use and configuration, but with these two battery options, buyers will be able to right-size their pack for their application.
The trucks we drove felt smooth and quick on the track despite their 30,000+ lb. weight, with no problem getting up to speed – or down from it. Regenerative braking was strong; we saw up to 250 kW of regen being applied when we let off the accelerator. This helps make the vehicles more efficient, reduces maintenance due to lower brake usage, and reduces one source of noise, which is particularly beneficial for neighborhood operation. It’s also nice for drivers who don’t need to move their leg around to press the brake pedal as much (a minor thing, but compounded over several 8 hour days, it can add up).
These vehicles weren’t exactly quiet because while the diesel engine has been deleted, there’s still plenty of machinery associated with loading garbage into the truck, which will still make just as much noise as in diesel-powered versions. But they are quieter than the diesel versions, and every little bit of noise reduction helps in a neighborhood (especially with the modern predilection towards work-from-home – trash days are utter chaos in my neighborhood).
Battle Motors’ philosophy has been not to shake the boat too much when it comes to laying out powertrain parts, choosing to mount the motor up front and deliver power to the axles through a driveshaft rather than an e-axle. For the garbage trucks especially, putting the motor in the rear would risk having food refuse and other gunk potentially falling onto it in the course of operation, which could lead to corrosion or result in varmints chewing up cables or something. Plus, in a time when EVs will necessarily only be part of a fleet (so far), it makes it easier for fleet mechanics to work on alternate powertrains when the rest of the parts are similar.
The interior had about what you’d expect out of a garbage truck. Various switches to operate equipment, air-ride seats, command seating positions with big flat windows, and so on. But electric vehicles can be more comfortable for drivers, especially with so many hours in the truck, because the lack of a rumbling diesel engine means less vibration, less exhaust, and less noise, which makes working hours generally easier on the body.
The digital info cluster is a large, detailed LCD screen running Battle Motors’ “rEVolutionOS.” The trucks use MobilEye’s Shield+ system for collision avoidance and blind spot detection, helping to increase safety.
Electric heavy-duty trucks are still expensive, costing twice as much (or more) as comparable diesel vehicles. Companies can generally recoup these costs with drastically lower running costs, including fueling and maintenance, and the difference is even greater when environmental costs are taken into account.
That last point is why governments have offered huge incentives to reduce upfront prices of heavy-duty vehicles, to the amount of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per truck, to the point where post-incentive pricing can be quite similar to diesel vehicles in places like California, where lots of incentives exist.
And it’s about time, too. Heavy-duty vehicles make more than their fair share of pollution, and for things like diesel garbage trucks, that pollution happens directly in communities where people spend most of their time (and this pollution also harms refuse workers, who are around it every day). The quicker we can clean that up, the better.
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Tesla (TSLA) is no longer confidently stating growth in its automotive business for 2025, and it has delayed updating its guidance until the next quarter after a disappointing performance in the first three months of the year.
2024 was Tesla’s first year in a decade where its vehicle deliveries went down year-over-year.
Just a few months ago, in January, Tesla was confident in predicting that it would return to growth in 2025:
“With the advancements in vehicle autonomy and the introduction of new products, we expect the vehicle business to return to growth in 2025.”
Today, Tesla released its Q1 2025 financial results, confirming that it had its worst quarter in years to start 2025.
The automaker is now clearly not as confident about returning to growth in its automotive business this year.
Tesla updated its “outlook” section this quarter to highlight the potential impact of trade policies and now no longer discusses automotive growth in isolation. Instead, it bundled automotive and energy businesses together and said that it will “revisit its 2025 guidance” next quarter:
It is difficult to measure the impacts of shifting global trade policy on the automotive and energy supply chains, our cost structure and demand for durable goods and related services. While we are making prudent investments that will set up both our vehicle and energy businesses for growth, the rate of growth this year will depend on a variety of factors, including the rate of acceleration of our autonomy efforts, production ramp at our factories and the broader macroeconomic environment. We will revisit our 2025 guidance in our Q2 update.
Tesla’s vehicle deliveries are already down about 50,000 units so far this year compared to last year.
It will be challenging to catch up in the current macroeconomic situation.
Tesla again guided the start of production of “new affordable models” in the first half of 2025, which could help the automaker to deliver more cars.
However, as we have previously reported, these new vehicles are expected to be stripped-down Model Y and Model 3, which will cannibalize Tesla’s current sales and limit its growth to those products.
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US DC fast charging is becoming more reliable, and charging stations are getting bigger and busier, according to a new Q1 2025 report from the EV data analysts at Paren.
DC fast charging station reliability is on the rise
Paren’s latest US Reliability Index – “Can I successfully charge at this charger?” – increased from 81.2 points in Q4 2024 to 82.6 points in Q1 2025, a notable jump of 1.7%. According to Bill Ferro, CTO at Paren, “This continues a quarterly trend across the US non-Tesla fast charging infrastructure, which suggests that the ongoing efforts to replace or sunset older hardware are having a positive impact on station uptime. In addition, newer entrants into the field are bringing time-tested hardware along with enhanced driver experiences.”
Utah, Alaska, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Nevada were the top-ranked states for DC fast charging reliability in Q1 2025.
Growth slows, but charging stations are getting larger
New DC fast charging ports grew to 55,580 at the end of Q1 2025, up 3,667 from last quarter, with total stations reaching 10,839, an increase of 794. This is fewer new additions compared to the surge seen at the end of 2024, reflecting typical seasonal slowdowns due to winter weather. However, there’s a bright spot: the average number of ports per station among non-Tesla networks rose to 3.9, compared to 2.7 year-over-year. The Tesla Supercharger network now averages 13 ports per station.
Utilization rates reflect the urban-rural divide
Average utilization – that’s the minutes of a charging session as a percentage of time a station is open each day – dropped slightly from 16.6% in Q4 2024 to 16.2% in Q1 2025, following typical holiday travel patterns. But overall, charging use is climbing, especially in dense urban areas with significant rideshare and apartment communities that rely heavily on public chargers.
Early days for NACS transition
The Combined Charging System (CCS) remains dominant, with 59% of new ports, and the shift toward Tesla’s NACS (J3400) standard is still in its very early stages. Only 104 non-Tesla NACS ports were added this quarter at non-Tesla networks, so drivers of new non-Tesla vehicles need to use their adapters if they want to use Superchargers.
Fixed pricing prevails
Charging operators primarily use fixed pricing (80%), with Time of Use (TOU) pricing making up 16%. Pay-by-time options are rare, used only 4.2% of the time.
California is the only major state where TOU pricing surpasses fixed pricing, while many states, such as Oklahoma, Vermont, and Arkansas, almost exclusively utilize fixed pricing models.
As for the most expensive places to fast charge your EV? The top four metropolitan statistical areas are all in California, with average rates at $0.60 or $0.61 per kWh.
Rural and low-income areas at risk
The Trump administration’s cancellation of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program poses a significant threat to rural and low-income communities. Loren McDonald, chief analyst at Paren, cautioned, “Our data is a harbinger of less expansion in rural and lower-income markets as CPOs will increasingly focus on urban markets, seeing high utilization, often north of 30%, versus markets with less than 5% utilization.”
‘Charging 2.0’ – a new industry phase
McDonald summed up the report by marking 2024 as a pivotal year, stating, “2024 was a year of mixed news in the US DC fast charging industry, but it will be remembered as a pivotal turn to a new era we are calling ‘Charging 2.0’. Charge-point operators and new players in the industry are increasingly focused on creating a great customer experience, improving reliability of chargers, and reaching profitability – a shift from chasing the availability of incentives, racing to get chargers in the ground, and then crossing your fingers that utilization will grow over time.”
Read more: Trump just canceled the federal NEVI EV charger program
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Tesla (TSLA) released its financial results and shareholders’ letter for the first quarter (Q1) and full-year 2025 after market close today.
We are updating this post with all the details from the financial results, shareholders’ letter, and the conference call later tonight. Refresh for the latest information.
Tesla Q1 2025 earnings expectations
As we reported in our Tesla Q1 2025 earnings preview yesterday, the Wall Street consensus for this quarter was $21.345 billion in revenue and earnings of $0.41 per share.
The expectations had been significantly downgraded over the last month, as analysts were surprised by Tesla’s announcement of much lower deliveries than expected in the first quarter.
Did Tesla meet them?`
Tesla Q1 2025 financial results
After the market closed today, Tesla released its financial results for the first quarter and confirmed that it missed expectations with earnings of $0.27 per share (non-GAAP), and it also missed revenue expectations with $19.335 billion during the last quarter.
This is a big miss for Tesla despite the company admitting to selling a lot more regulatory credits this quarter.
At $595 million in credit sales, Tesla would have lost money without it in Q1 2025:
In short, Tesla is on the verge of being a money-losing company.
We will be posting our follow-up posts here about the earnings and conference call to expand on the most important points (refresh the page to see the most recent posts):
Here’s Tesla’s Q1 2025 shareholder presentation in full:
Here’s Tesla’s conference call for the Q1 2025 results:
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