Analysis of ICE-to-Electric Powertrain Conversion for a Small Size Waste Collection Vehicle

Electrification or hybridization of commercial vehicles offers a promising avenue for mitigating emissions in urban environments. This concept is particularly applicable to waste collection vehicles, which move in urban contexts along repeatedly chosen driving cycles. Municipal waste collection and transport are functional tasks which have a significant impact on the urban environment in terms of energy consumption and CO₂ emissions. In this work, the evaluation of a full-electric powertrain was carried out for a small size waste collection vehicle operating in the historic center of the city of Perugia (Italy). First, the vehicle model was developed and validated against literature data using a full-electric powertrain. The model allows to evaluate energy consumption and system efficiency considering the real driving path and the mass variation due to the waste collected during the route. Real driving data (position, slope, collection stops) were obtained through an experimental campaign carried out by the local waste management company (Gesenu SpA), and implemented directly in the model developed in a system-level simulation environment (GT-Power). Subsequently, three different scenarios were compared in terms of waste weight transported to predict energy consumption, environmental impact and vehicle ranges.