20 September/October 2025 | E-Mobility Engineering Mack Trucks is a market leader in refuse vehicles. So, when a customer came calling for electrification, they immediately rose to the challenge. The resulting revolution was a revelation, Will Gray reports Green garbage Heavy-duty vehicles are often the hardest to electrify. Their demands for huge amounts of power and torque to carry heavy loads make them an ideal fit for electric motors, but the need to maximise operational time requires decent range, and the addition of batteries sized to meet that need significantly reduces the payload they can handle. As a result, the world of recycling and refuse collection could be described by the term agathokakological – a process that is simultaneously good and evil. Clearly, collecting waste and converting it into new materials to conserve Earth’s resources is vital, but doing so while emitting CO2 and particulates in residential neighbourhoods is contrastingly harmful. Mack Trucks’ industry-leading diesel- or natural gas-powered refuse vehicle, the LR, weighs in at between 19.5 and 32.5 tonnes, depending on its configuration and payload. On a typical daily run, it will be required to cover between 60 and 100 miles, stopping and starting continuously to empty all the bins along its pre-prescribed route. That stop-start process results in an astonishingly low three miles per The Mack LRe delivers a fully electric solution for the refuse industry (All images courtesy of Mack Trucks)
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