Public Works supervisor Bob Donnachie showed CBC News around Dundee in one of its new electric garbage trucks. While EV chargers can be big and bulky, many of Dundee's stations are actually kept out of sight.Īt a parking lot next to the River Tay, chargers are embedded in the concrete at curbside, flush with the sidewalk they pop up when a driver pulls up and activates them through a phone app. The infrastructure has to come in first before people will then start buying into it, said Crichton. ET.ĭundee has also invested more than £3.8 million ($7 million Cdn) to build electric-vehicle charging stations at strategic points across the city. Join the conversation by heading to the CBC News Instagram (new window) on Friday at 11 a.m. CBC News is hosting a live Q&A with Sarah Hanson from Indigenous Climate Action, an organization that is working to decolonize Canada's climate policy and empower Indigenous-led solutions.We're the vanguard of moving over to e-mobility of any city in Europe, said Fraser Crichton, manager of Dundee's municipal vehicle fleet. Today, it's already about one-quarter of the way through converting its municipal fleet of 180 vehicles - from garbage trucks and street sweepers, to vans and cars - over to zero-emission vehicles. The city is about one-quarter of the way through converting its municipal fleet of 180 vehicles over to zero-emission vehicles. These are two of six new electric garbage trucks in Dundee, Scotland. Another is Leonardo Di Chargio, after the actor and environmental activist.ĭundee - a city of 150,000 about 125 kilometres northeast of Glasgow - is a former industrial town that has successfully transitioned into a hub for tech startups and medical research. Watts, playing off a Sherlock Holmes theme. Your input helps inform our coverage.ĭundee purchased six electric garbage trucks and then held a contest to have schoolchildren give them electricity-related names.ĬBC News was given its tour in Dr. Have questions about COP26 or climate science, policy or politics? Email us: (new window).You don't have the rattles and bangs as you normally do. It's very different from a conventional diesel truck, I must admit, said Donnachie, taking CBC News out for an unusually quiet drive through the city. Retourner au début du widget ?Īs world leaders at COP26 in Glasgow hammer out the final details of a new action plan to tackle climate change, the nearby Scottish city of Dundee is already offering a glimpse of what a zero-emission future might look like.įor Public Works manager Bob Donnachie, it's a big blue electric garbage truck - or a bin lorry, as the Scots call them. Morning Call reporter Jon Harris can be reached at 48 or at. “We are not planning to fall behind the competition,” Brunius said. In many ways, the electric garbage truck is just the starting point. “Our whole thing is about security and keeping everyone working here - that’s the most important thing to me.”įor Mack, which introduced a prototype of the Mack LR Electric in 2018, getting the electric truck into serial production is the next step in its electrification efforts, which will lead to an increasing number of electric vehicle models down the road. “I’m sure we’ll be building gas ones for a little while yet, so that will be the majority of our work, but we’re real happy,” said Walt Smith, president of United Auto Workers Local 677. While Mack has plenty of demand for its diesel trucks, the union that represents the plant’s workers said it’s excited the company made the commitment to build the electric vehicles in the Lehigh Valley, which should ensure job security for future generations of Mack employees. That’s something that should catch the attention of most Lehigh Valley residents, especially amid the explosion in local warehouse development and the truck traffic that comes with it, said Andrea Wittchen, president of the Lehigh Valley Sustainability Network. As it is now, greenhouse gas emissions from transportation account for about 29% of the U.S. The event, sponsored by the Lehigh Valley Sustainability Network, called on Congress to pass a budget with big investments in clean transportation infrastructure. Many people would like to see that timeline accelerated, including several climate advocates who joined Brunius at the Mack plant Thursday. “The transition period - how long that will be - that is sort of written in the stars.” “This truck is the future for the plant, but the question is then the timeline of when we are moving from diesel trucks into electric,” said Brunius, vice president and general manager of Mack’s Lehigh Valley Operations.
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