Aussie Enviro

The brakes assuning they’re pneumatic still would still make a lot of noise

They would surely be regenerative

I hear the garbage truck brakes way before I hear the engine.

Electric vehicles do put less load on the brakes thanks to regenerative charging. I bet the trucks will still be plenty loud in other ways as well. The lifting and compaction mechanisms alone can be heard a ways away.

will the increased requirements to charge all these vehicles increase power plant emissions worsening the effects of coal over regular vehicle emissions?

No, that's never going to happen. A huge coal power plant is always going to operate at a higher efficiency than a little engine inside a car or truck. It's the efficiency of scale. And that's the starting point! Our grid is already nearing 50% renewable in some places and it's rising.

The advantage of EVs is they'll get cleaner over time. If you bought one of those Nissan Leafs in 2012, you would have charged it using quite a lot of coal generated electricity. That same car today would use probably half coal and half solar. As coal continues to exit the grid and we build out more solar, emissions from EVs already on the road will keep dropping.

If you buy a diesel today, it's still going to be burning diesel in 2040.

@Aussiemandeus @Baku as a country that struggled to recycle glass how are we going to recycle batteries that are infinitely more toxic.

There is this push for all Aussie car owners to have electric, but we have no commitments to improve electrical infrastructure, why is it the individuals responsibility to make changes, where is the push for better public transport.

We model our society and cities after the US, with sprawling suburbs and car centric neighbourhoods, why not make it easier to choose a bus over car a train over gridlock traffic. Focus on a better society, better urban planning and people will make better choices around cars.

The battery pack wouldn't be amongst the crushing section of the truck so the fires wouldn't be much worse then the 900 litres of diesel and 150 litres of hydraulic oil that could go up in a regular rubbish truck.

The fire could actually be very much worse. A fuel/oil fire is Class B, which can be extinguished with CO2 or with foaming agents. You can add foam to a regular fire hose and lay down a layer of it to smother the fire. A battery is a Class D (metal) fire, which can't be extinguished with anything common.

Metal fires are some scary shit to be around. It's risky for firefighters to even use a fire hose to cool a burning electric vehicle because lithium releases hydrogen gas and heat on contact with water. Usually you have to just wait for a metal fire to burn itself out.

As long as the battery's undamaged it's not an issue, but a burning garbage truck?