Crane Carrier Company, a Battle Motors truck manufacturing company,  has announced the first delivery of battery-powered, electric refuse trucks to New York City with Liberty Ashes, a family-operated business providing the NYC metro area with waste removal and recycling for over 50 years. Liberty Ashes will be using the Battle One Severe Duty Refuse (formerly LET) and Battle One Crew Cab (formerly LET2) trucks to service customers in the Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, Nassau, and Suffolk areas.

In February 2020, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio signed an executive order mandating a fully electric municipal fleet by 2040, furthering his December 2015 NYC Clean Fleet sustainability plan to create the largest electric vehicle fleet of any U.S. city and reduce NYC’s municipal vehicle emissions by half by 2025 and by 80% by 2035. De Blasio’s ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goal prioritizes the environmental direction of NYC by electrifying fleets, like garbage trucks, to benefit not only the environment but also residents and those working on and around the vehicles through significant reductions in noise and noxious gases.

“The Battle One delivers the same comfort, visibility, and reliability as the CNG- and diesel-powered Crane Carrier LET and LET2, but has lower maintenance costs, reduced noise, and zero carbon emissions, all of which are goals of Liberty Ashes and NYC. Rugged framework, attention to detail, and a durable yet ergonomic cab environment keeps New York employees healthy and safe and makes these vehicles an excellent investment," said Sean Gilroy, VP of sales at Crane Carrier.

Liberty Ashes will be one of the first private sanitation and recycling companies to purchase and utilize electric refuse trucks throughout the greater metro New York area, setting the standard for environmental clean energy impact. They intend to use power generated from eight of their own solar stations to charge the Battle One trucks. In the near future, they will be building a waste conversion facility in Jamaica, New York, to convert 400 tons of municipal solid waste per day into renewable clean natural gas to fuel a fleet of the Battery Electric CNG vehicles to further reduce pollution, and remove additional truck waste out of NYC.