APPRO-2024-5 : An Appropriation from Capital Stabilization (#8405) in the amount of $298,000 (Two Hundred Ninety Eight Thousand Dollars) to DPW Sanitation (#433) for the purposes of purchasing electric vehicle charging infrastructure and an electric refuse service vehicle. The current balance in the Capital Stabilization Fund as of 9/18/23 is $997,947.34.

Transcript (~1 h 17 min @ 37:17)

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▶ 36:50 Leila Migliorelli: we are now closed for public comment. Um, since we have members of the administration here tonight to speak on the items before us, I'd like to motion by unanimous consent to suspend rule 37 B before we proceed. Seeing no objection, rule 37 B is now suspended. First on our agenda tonight is appropriation 2024 dash five and appropriation from capital stabilization 8 4 0 5 and the amount of $298,000 to D P W sanitation. 4, 3, 3 for the purposes of purchasing electric vehicle, charging infrastructure, and an electric refuse service vehicle. The current balance in the capital stabilization fund as of September 18th is $997,947 and 34 cents. Tonight we have D p W director, uh, Lana POAs, Ellis Mayor Broder, and, um, Martha Grover here, office of Sustainability. Thank you.

▶ 37:48 Paul Brodeur: Uh, thank you Madam Chair, members of the committee. Um, I'm gonna try not to talk a ton, but I do want, we got a, we got an email, um, a little bit, a little bit late in the day, but I do want to read it because we talk a lot about youth voice and I think it's important. Uh, dear City Councilors, my name is Tucker. I am 14 years old and I've been a resident of Melrose my whole life. I'm writing to urge you to vote to approve funding for the new electric refuse truck. Another diesel trash haul that could last 20, even 25 years at just three miles per gallon. Three miles per gallon exclamation point, and burning over 10,000 gallons of diesel per year that he cites to the US Department of Energy. These gas guzzling trucks continued presence could be catastrophic in the fight against climate change. As a young person, I represent all the other kids I've met and haven't who care about our climate crisis, your constituents, even the ones who couldn't vote for you, deserve a cleaner city. My generation does not yet have the power to make these decisions, but we face the repercussions of their impacts. Please do the right thing and secure a more climate friendly Melrose. And that is from Tucker Lamo, and I hope I'm saying, uh, his last name correctly. Um, you know, we've, we've talked about this quite a bit. One thing that came up, um, in our earlier discussions about this was, um, you know, kind of a, what's the plan and what about the, the net zero action plan. Well, the net zero action plan is the plan. Uh, I did take the liberty of, um, drafting a memo about two and a half pages long, so I won't, uh, I won't take you through that. And, and you're welcome for, for, for that. Um, but like a lot of other things we have done, um, you know, this is a careful, deliberate long-term process with a lot of public input. Not unlike, um, you know, the library to a certain degree. Certainly the public safety, um, building effort that's going on where we use a combination of, uh, experts and volunteers all I'll admit with, with a certain expertise. Uh, and the reason for that and the facts are symbol. The, you know, everything from a policy perspective that is going on in this country in a rare kind of, you know, consistency with state, federal, and local government. The federal government admitted being a bit of a jump ball is pointing towards the need for decarbonization the economic growth opportunities, uh, related to decarbonization. Uh, and yeah, I, I certainly don't want to be alarm. It's 'cause you all know the, the drill, but, you know, time's a wasting. And this is to, to the point that, that Timothy made so, well, this is how we get there. This is certainly not the whole answer. Um, but it's an important component of the answer. And what we said in the, um, net zero action plan that it was released in April of, of last year, um, was there many points that we have to essentially attack. One of them being transportation and transportation infrastructure and electrification is the key to decarbonization in terms of infrastructure. The technology is tested, the technology, um, is more reliable in particular around, um, maintenance, which is a terrific question. It's something we should, uh, all be thinking about. But electric vehicles as a general proposition, do not need as much maintenance. They're essentially solid states. So the engine, I'm, I'm, I'm not really a car guy, but like the drive train, those things, when they're solid state, they don't, they don't break as much, uh, to the extent that the hydraulics need repair. Although some of those moving parts, well, they're no different than the vehicles that we have traditionally bought, uh, in that sense. Um, so if, if I guess what they, if not now, I'm not sure really when, uh, the what, um, Martha and Elena will take you through is kind of the economics of the deal, which have improved significantly since, since we were last before you and can answer any questions about, uh, reliability. But if we are, and we have committed to this as a community, um, before my time here, um, during my time here, and I think hopefully after my time here, um, that we will be engaged and proactive in doing what we can to meet the challenge of climate change. And again, in this, in this sense, it, it's, if if you, if you don't think that's important, fine, I respectfully disagree with you, but the dolls in sense work out in this too. So again, I would urge you to, uh, move forward on this. And I leave it to the, the experts that have really dug in on this, um, to answer any of your questions or make whatever statement they feel like about the particulars of this purchase.

▶ 43:18 Speaker 6: Okay. Thank you, mayor. Um, so I won't go in too much detail through the contents of the memo that D p w submitted. Um, I think it's fairly self-explanatory, but the, the big picture is that since the last time we were here, we've been able to nail down the incentives with National Grid, the specifics on the, um, infrastructure side. There were a lot of unknowns on the infrastructure side the last time we were here. And so we conservatively had to include, um, money that we now do not need to include in the purchase price for the infrastructure because of the national grid incentives. Um, so we have a better understanding of those. We were able to move toward a solution that has a pole mounted transformer instead of a ground mounted transformer at the D P W, which leaves us with a lot more flexibility in the future because the, the building that we're proposing to put the charging stations near is the building on our site that's in the worst condition and hopefully will be the next building that we look to replace someday. Um, so having a big transformer in front of it wasn't gonna be ideal. And so we've moved toward this pole mounted transformer. Um, the, the specifics in the memo, there's an aerial view where they've placed the three charging stations. That was just a rough, um, sketch that the, that the, um, vendor did. That's not exactly where they would go. They would be in that area, but they won't be positioned exactly how they had them because it's awkward for the trucks to pull in the way they drew them. But, um, but we're excited that we're moving toward a pole mounted, um, dedicated service. So there are other, um, advantages that maybe Martha can talk about a little bit more with, um, with having a dedicated service that qualifies us for even more rebates and such down the road. Um, that wouldn't be possible if we had it on the same electrical service as our building needs. Um,

▶ 45:18 Speaker 6: and then the tax credit, the $40,000 tax credit was something that we weren't sure about before and we were certain about it now. Um, the process is not entirely in place in terms of how to submit that paperwork, but the, um, the infrastructure is in place for that tax credit to exist and the $40,000 number has been vetted and is accurate. Um, so we are now down to a total capital stabilization request of $298,000, which is, um, is coincidentally the same price that we had as the diesel, um, option that we submitted the last time around pure coincidence that it's, it's the exact same number. We didn't tweak anything to get there. Um, but the fact that we could have a dedicated new electrical service, including all the conduit and everything installed three new fast chargers and a diesel and a, excuse me, an ev trash truck for the cost that the city would otherwise spend on the diesel trash truck. Um, to me, this, this is now a no brainer from a financial perspective that, um, the city would be foolish to not move forward with this purchase when we can get such a good deal and get all the infrastructure in place. Um, also setting us up for future grants, future EV purchases, where we'll then have three fast chargers that allow, allow us to charge those vehicles. Um, one other item that came in after the, after I put the memo together so I didn't include it, is that our fleet consultant has just completed the analysis of the city's fleet and they've estimated about a $1.1 million annual expenditure recommended, um, for our fleet replacement based on the existing fleet ages and industry best practice. So, um, you know, to be able to take advantage of such significant grant and incentive money cuts a little bit down on that 1.1 million that they're recommending we should be spending this year. We're not coming forward with 1.1 million in requests this year that this is the only vehicle we're requesting right now, but starting next year, if we wanna maintain our fleet at the level that the consultant recommends as best practice, that's the investment that they're recommending that we need to be making.

▶ 47:40 Speaker 6: Anything to add,

▶ 47:42 Speaker 1: I'm here to just answer any questions. Okay,

▶ 47:46 Speaker 1: thank you. Um, first in queue I have Councillor Ella.

▶ 47:50 Christopher Cinella: Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you for being here. If you could just add some clarity to Mr. PE Ryan's questions. I, I don't recall, uh, 200,000 appropriation into this existing truck, I think,

▶ 48:01 Speaker 6: No, I think it was 20 something thousand. Yeah, we, I just want to, we did do a major repair probably about a year ago, and it was in the 20 to 30,000 range.

▶ 48:09 Christopher Cinella: Okay. And then as far as maintenance goes, I know you, you touched on it a bit, um, are mechanics, um, they they trained at all? Like any, anything like this? Or, or will they get training or do they need training when it comes to the hydraulics, are they the same as a diesel truck?

▶ 48:27 Speaker 2: Yes. So it's all The same stuff.

▶ 48:28 Speaker 6: Our, our mechanics will get training. Um, we've already talked to the truck manufacturers. They both said that they would do training, um, on maintenance of, of their trucks. Um, the hydraulics and such. Everything in the hopper on the, the body end of the truck, it's the same equipment that would be on the diesel truck. Um, so the maintenance wouldn't be any different for everything on the back end. The, uh, the manufacturers have both agreed to a five year warranty on the batteries. So anything, any issues with the batteries that would go back to the manufacturer. Um, and they both have local, um, local shops and local reps that local meaning Massachusetts, not borough,

▶ 49:15 Speaker 2: Well, they have mobile. They have mobile like, um, mechanics too though will come

▶ 49:20 Speaker 6: That I'm not sure about. But they both have, you know, shops within a reasonable distance to get the truck somewhere.

▶ 49:27 Speaker 2: Thank you.

▶ 49:30 Speaker 1: Okay. Councillor Gepe,

▶ 49:31 Mark Garipay: Thank you. Thank you for being here. Um, I'm not gonna rehash, I mean everyone knows where I stand. Um, based on, based on the last, uh, time it was before us, um, you know, I spoke a lot about this and my two major concerns were cost and reliability. Glad to see we got the cost in line. I still have concerns about the reliability. Um, electric technology we all agree is here. It's here on the light duty light, gross vehicle weight vehicles. It's still not proven technology on the heavier duty class, six, seven and not vehicles. We still have, we still have some ways to go on that. Um, but, and I'm not disputing it, this is the future, but my concern is the residents of Melrose and making sure we can service the residents of Melrose with a purchase of, of this vehicle. So just a, just a couple questions on, on the, the added information you gave us. Who is gonna be the manufacturer of this? Is it battle?

▶ 50:37 Speaker 6: So we're, right now we're leaning toward battle. When I put this all together, I concluded that that was our best option because they can have a truck to us in a matter of less than six months. Um, they've offered that we can go to the factory, see the manufacturing drive the truck. Um, and they also, we had a meeting at one point, we were looking into lease options for the, we were mainly looking at it for the infrastructure, the charging infrastructure. We met with a company, uh, Highland, and they do a lot of, um, lease arrangements, a lot of buses, a lot of community buses and such. But, um, they're working consistently with all the manufacturers. And they said that Battle has the most for all the communities that they're working with. That battle has the most road miles on their electric technology for vehicles of this size. So they were, they were recommending, not formally recommending, but they were saying, you know, we feel very comfortable with them. We are purchasing their vehicles and leasing them to communities. Um, and then they had the lowest cost and the most consistent information with the, um, you know, their ability to manufacture this vehicle and that they've manufactured these already, these class seven, the exact truck that we included in the spec. Um, as soon as I submitted this and I called Peterbilt and told them that I submitted it, they said, well, we can match that price as long as we do the same curb tender body, we can match that price with our two 20 EV Peterbilt truck. So now they're kind of back in the game. But I think from a timing perspective and from a an experience perspective with this same truck, the same body, um, battle Motors has more experience and can get us a truck sooner.

▶ 52:33 Mark Garipay: Okay. And to Counselor Ella's, um, point,

▶ 52:40 Mark Garipay: um, and uh, to the mayor's point, you know, there is less cost to maintain these, but there's a lot of technology, it's a lot of, a lot of computer knowledge. And do we, what is the cost of the software for us on an electric vehicle compared to a Freightliner an international? Have we looked into that, what the added costs would be? Um, 'cause I'm, I'm assuming that's all pro proprietary and we're gonna have to, um, have a purchase that stuff in order for our, our mechanics to be able to to, um, to be able to repair 'em. And second, a lot of times when you buy a new vehicle, if you're not going back to the dealer, um, we, for warranty, we'd have to be certified to handle the warranty. Correct. Are we, are our mechanics gonna be certified to handle the warranty? So it's not out of out of cost. There is, there is gonna be maintenance. I understand there's, you know, there's no transmission and all that, but there is gonna be maintenance. So what is the plan on, on that portion of it?

▶ 53:41 Speaker 6: So we haven't looked into the software question yet, I'll have to get back to you on that. Um, but our mechanics, I, I would presume if they're getting the training from the manufacturer that they would become certified, uh, to do the troubleshooting or whatnot. Um, but in terms of the, the overall cost of ownership, Martha, I dunno if you wanna talk a little bit about, you know, I'm, I'm sure the software costs would pale in comparison to the, um, the overall difference in ownership costs that you sent me earlier.

▶ 54:16 Speaker 1: Yeah. Um, so the Department of Energy Resources, and one thing I wanna just say is I think any new vehicle comes with loaded with software and we're all driving computers right now, so I, I don't think that EVs are any different than, um, ice vehicles these days. In terms of the onboard technology and computers and ices,

▶ 54:37 Speaker 7: Internal combustion, I would say the repair shops need to need to plug in to

▶ 54:40 Speaker 1: Figure out a way to Yeah, I mean, we would have to, we would have to up our game and learn and get trained on that. In any case, regardless of what we're buying, I would say, um, so, uh, the Department of Energy Resources or the US Department of of Energy, um, you know, there are national labs. So Argonne National Lab has this fantastic tool that I played around with just this afternoon. Um, and you can put in the miles driven for, for ref. It has all these different categories and it, they found, and these, these databases are loaded with all kinds of current data and it's really, it breaks it down into, um, they, they look at financing, depreciation, fuel costs, um, maintenance, insurance, licensing, every and everything. And they look at over 15 years of ownership that a diesel refuse truck, uh, would cost $1.6 million. In contrast, the, um, the EV refuse truck, total cost of owner ownership comes to just over a million. So it's about a $600,000 difference. Um, which I is pretty significant.

▶ 55:52 Speaker 6: And they assumed for 15 years.

▶ 55:54 Speaker 1: They assumed 15 years, which,

▶ 55:55 Mark Garipay: But they're basing that, that ev number on it's new technology. So we haven't seen, we, you're basing on a 10 year diesel. Right. So we might be 4, 3, 4 into it, and everything runs good three, four years into. Right.

▶ 56:09 Speaker 1: I, and I, I don't think that the technology in the class, I mean, you, you know, the, the higher, but the class six, seven vehicles that we're talking about here are any different from the buses, the electric buses that are being driven all over the world in countries, in, in cities. Tho those are large heavy duty vehicles and there are thousands of them, um, all over the world that are being driven with, with known reliability and known experience. I, I don't think this is anything,

▶ 56:40 Mark Garipay: I think it might be carrying a little bit more weight in these. But, um,

▶ 56:42 Paul Brodeur: One other thing is that, that, that you mentioned, I know a little bit, a little bit about enough, enough to be dangerous in terms of that proprietary tech, the proprietary software. Um, probably when did I, like 2018 or so, Massachusetts passed the right to repair law, which was specific to um, vehicles. There are some fights nationally about whether it will be the federal law of the land, uh, but here in Massachusetts you can't, um, manufacturers cannot withhold that information. Interestingly, the trend or the new, the new debate before the legislature is whether or not right to repair should apply to a whole host of, of other appliances and technologies, particularly these. So the trend is towards almost open source with some of the stuff.

▶ 57:42 Mark Garipay: What would the, um, so what's a local deal? You said there's one, we're buying it through, uh, truck centers in Brockton. Is that it,

▶ 57:47 Speaker 7: is that I saw an email from Yes,

▶ 57:49 Speaker 6: It's the same, um, Boston Freight Line. Boston Freight liner. Okay. Yeah. Uh,

▶ 57:54 Mark Garipay: so the Look Online Battle online only has a dealer in South Portland, Maine, and Connecticut. But they're gonna be a startup dealer for Battle in this area. Is that 'cause they're not online?

▶ 58:10 Speaker 6: Um, I, I don't have that information. Okay. The, the location information with me,

▶ 58:15 Mark Garipay: Are you confident in the salesperson at Boston? Yes. Liner? Yeah. All right. Uh, 'cause based on his email that was in the packet, it says, I do, I do see benefits as a non C D L regarding driver flexibility. However, I have some trepidations on how well that EV Bill Lighter weight will be able to stand the test of time in the refuse industry.

▶ 58:39 Speaker 6: That was my request for a Class six price because, um, so since the last time we were here, I had submitted all Class seven vehicles originally, then in our attempts to look at different cost scenarios and, and different manufacturers. I went back, I spoke to Mac, they're only producing a Class eight vehicle right now. Refuse they, they wouldn't quote me on a Class seven because they said they're just not doing them right now. They're very comfortable with their Class eight. And that cost over 700,000. So that was off the table. Um, then I circled back with Peterbilt and I requested a Class six price, and they put together a quote for a Class six vehicle. And the idea being that that would also add flexibility to our operation because it could be driven by a laborer. It wouldn't need to be driven by a C D L driver. And then that same laborer could, like, if we just needed to send somebody out in the truck to, to pick up trash, we would just send one person. And it's not ideal because they're, you're getting out from the driver's side and, you know, walking in traffic and such. But it, it was just to add some flexibility. So they provided me for a price with a Class six. So then I went to Battle Motors and requested a Class six price, and that was his response. And then we followed up with a phone call where he explained to me all the reasons why he didn't feel a Class Six was a feasible option. And then interestingly, I circled back with Peterbilt expressing all these concerns that Battle Motors had raised, and Peterbilt ultimately said, yeah, we can't, we gave you a quote for a Class six, but we don't think we can really build that vehicle and have it stay under 26,000 pounds. Mm-hmm. Because he was, they were accounting for a 24,000 pound vehicle, and then you can only carry one ton of trash. And he said, you know, unless you're counting on not ever being weighed, which you're probably not gonna be in a municipal trash truck. So they basically ultimately said the same thing that Battle Motors said, which is, you know, we're not comfortable providing any option for Class six. So that's what specifically he was commenting on in that email. So

▶ 1:00:39 Speaker 3: For civilians out there,

▶ 1:00:42 Speaker 7: And then classes

▶ 1:00:42 Speaker 3: Are essentially scale, size, weight,

▶ 1:00:45 Speaker 6: Weight, yeah. And, and the C D L is required for class seven and up.

▶ 1:00:54 Mark Garipay: And then, um, back in February, Republic, one of the largest refuse companies in the, in the country with 17,000 vehicles, they, they just had a press release that they're, they run a couple in two states, but they're actually doing prototypes coming out this fall. This is my concern is if the second or third largest refuse company in the country is not even, they're getting there, they're gonna do 8% a year, but they're slowly getting there. We don't have the money that they have. That's my concern is the reliability and being able to service. So if this, if this goes down, what is the plan? And it goes down for an extended period of time, what's the plan to, to service the residents, service the streets, the dead ends that I think was brought up, the parks, the schools. And what would that additional cost to our operating budget be? I mean, at the end of the day, yeah, it's great. Uh, you know, we got the money down, but we are here. We, we need to service the residents. That's really why we're all here. We are here because of the residents. So how, how would that, what's the plan on that? And

▶ 1:02:07 Speaker 6: So we always have Truck 26 as a backup. We're gonna

▶ 1:02:10 Speaker 7: Keep

▶ 1:02:11 Speaker 6: That. Yes. Um, we use it for yard waste. So, and our conclusion in the, um, in the negotiations with the three trash haulers, our conclusion is that yard waste is not a feasible item to outsource. Basically, because it's particular weeks of the year, the companies can't cost effectively have trucks available and personnel available to only service us, you know, 12 weeks out of the year or whatever it comes out to. And, you know, there is the possibility of trying to team up with other communities and have yard waste. You know, we'll take the first week of the month and you take the second week of the month. And, but they said even that is not really practical with their existing, um, clients. And so the cost of outsourcing yard waste far exceeded our internal costs. Um, and just, you know, doesn't seem like it's in the cards anytime soon. So Truck 26 will continue to be operating. It can be used for anything other than the, the tightest of dead ends, in which case we can always drag the barrels down to the end of the street. These streets that where we do use truck 18 to get to have access, they're typically a street with one or two homes on a tiny dead end. And so we can always just pull the barrels down to the end of the street when our truck is down.

▶ 1:03:29 Paul Brodeur: Is that the same plan if, uh, if we bought a new diesel and that experience? Yes.

▶ 1:03:37 Speaker 6: And we'll always have our new hauler too that, you know, not, it wouldn't be cheap, but if we needed somebody to step in, we did include in our, um, our draft contracts with Costella. We have included line items for if we need them to pick up the school dumpsters for a week, or if we need them to pick up the municipal barrels. Um, they're giving us prices for those so that we have a set number in our contract if we need to outsource for one week or two weeks

▶ 1:04:07 Mark Garipay: With all these questions, I know people are gonna say, you know, I'm against, you know, going green. No, I voted. I have supported every green appropriation that keep it up put in front of us, but I've expressed my concerns. I'm not gonna support this. I said, if you, if you came back with the electric charging stations on a separate order, I would support that. That's, that's not what happened here. Um, so I would, I would recommend Republic is using Mac in, in Peterbilt right now. If, if this does pass and we go, I would encourage us to look at Peterbilt proven technology. There's a lot of dealer networks around here, you know, so we can keep this thing, uh, up and running if we do have issues. That, that would be my, my recommendation. Fine. That's it. Thank you. Thank

▶ 1:04:54 Speaker 6: You.

▶ 1:04:55 Paul Brodeur: Councilor Farm. Just for the council's information, we don't have the option of just buying under the grant. We don't have the option of buying the chargers and not buying the truck. And if we don't buy the truck, we don't need the Chargers.

▶ 1:05:13 Speaker 1: Councillor Carrum Shady. Okay.

▶ 1:05:16 Manjula Karamcheti: So our community has committed to net zero. Correct. And this electric vehicle is a way to move towards our net zero. I actually just started working at a foundation, um, that does a lot of climate work. And there their sort of strategy for the next few years is electrify everything. And so it does seem like this is the way to go in terms of moving forward. I think as this is an area that is not my area of expertise at all. I believe in it big picture. But I think what I'm hearing is there is a, a concern about like the cost benefit and risk of doing this vehicle at this time, as opposed to waiting until the technology is more proven that the bigger players are involved in going in that direction too. So I just am curious from your perspective, sort of what are the risks of doing it and what are the risks of waiting? 'cause no scenario is gonna be perfect. So just from your perspective, you've been doing all the research, you've been deep into this, what are the risks, risks of doing it, and what are the risks of waiting?

▶ 1:06:35 Speaker 6: Sure. So, um, I'll start with the risks of waiting. I think that's a little simpler. So I think the risks of waiting are, you know, we, we need to buy a new trash truck. So we end up buying a diesel truck the way we keep our vehicles for longer than we should. We'll be driving that trash truck into the, you know, 2040s, um, at a time when, you know, we will hopefully have largely moved on from, from diesel technology. And, you know, it's, it's just the risk is, it's inconsistent with our climate goals, with our net zero goals. And ultimately we, we are going to have this environmental impact for the next 15 years, 20 years, however long we keep a diesel truck for. We're just continuing to have that impact, um, you know, with low gas mileage and lots of idling. And so that is, that's the risk. Um, I guess the other risk of not moving forward is that it's not, it's kind of a given. We lose the grant money and that's, that would be very unfortunate given how much now between grants incentives and tax credits. We're looking at a major influx of, of funding toward this project from the outside, which we, we are constantly looking for opportunities for outside funding and they're few and far between. So this is a great opportunity. Um, the risk of ownership of an electric vehicle, obviously there are, you know, there are new components to the technology. We have to learn how to service those components. We have to establish a relationship with the, um, with the company that would be doing the service when we need to send it out. Um, From, from everybody who I've spoken to who works in this industry, my perception is that there is not a big, this is not a big unknown. As Martha said, these, these heavier duty vehicles, they're being driven as buses. We, we, as I said, the Highland Fleet company that does leases, they're purchasing these same vehicles and leasing them to communities with guarantees for 10 years that they will do all the service on them. Um, we are working with one of the vendors actually now employ someone who used to work for the state. And in speaking with him, he even offered to come to the meeting. Um, I didn't want to have play favorites with the two vendors, so I didn't end up inviting him, but he has every confidence in this technology and was working for mass d e p on ev rollouts and heavy duty vehicles. Um, you know, I, I understand that there's trepidation, but I don't think, I don't think the risks are that high from what I'm hearing from the folks who are in positions where they're working on this day in and day out. So I have a high comfort level with this purchase. Yeah. And

▶ 1:09:28 Speaker 1: The other note on that is that, um, what I'm seeing among my cohort and among communities in, in Massachusetts and elsewhere, is that after buses, which we don't own any, so we're not gonna do that, but the next thing after buses is refuse refuse trucks. It's, it's the next use case that makes a lot of sense. It's not, it's not heavy, heavy road use. It's not a ton of hours. You can, you, you send it out for six hours, you've got plenty of, of downtime to re to charge it up. And so, you know, Cambridge has several on order. They're Mack trucks gonna take longer than than our Battle Motors would. We, you've talked to the New York sanitation department that they have, they've been using them for several years, um, and have done some pilots. So that's the refuse truck is the next thing for, um, medium and heavy duty.

▶ 1:10:23 Speaker 6: And we also Electric Vehicles. We asked this question to the, to the trash haulers too, when we were in the contract negotiations, Coello, waste Management and Republic, and all of them are moving toward electric vehicles. Um, you know, because they already own their fleet. They're not rushing to replace everything with electric vehicles, but they are, you know, certain states are putting more pressure on from a regulatory perspective than others. So I know in California, a lot of the companies are moving toward electric more quickly. Um, so that's probably where we will see it first with these major companies. Um, but Waste Management had piloted one and they were happy with the technology and they were gonna buy more. Um, so, you know, everybody's moving this direction and we're not hearing a lot of hesitation from those who are working day in, day out with these Electric vehicles. Okay. And I,

▶ 1:11:14 Speaker 1: I think I'm also understanding Melrose isn't like the first city ever

▶ 1:11:17 Manjula Karamcheti: to do this. These are not uncharted waters. Like Yeah. It has happened in other communities. There are ways to fix issues that come up and generally communities that have gone in this direction, it's been successful and citizens have been served well. Yeah.

▶ 1:11:39 Speaker 3: Okay. On the price thing, because you have,

▶ 1:11:42 Paul Brodeur: you have that kind of risk and return on investment. One thing that doesn't happen very effectively in, in the, I'll call it the climate marketplace, the energy marketplace, the transportation marketplace, this gets a little bit wonky, but is the, you know, counting of external costs that, you know, there, there's a phrase for it. I can't remember the phrase of, of the top of my head. Um, the, um, the fact that I think Council Williams mentioned it last time, what is the value of a quiet truck going down Main Street? Um, what is the public health value of not pushing that carbon into the air, which certainly from a global warming perspective is not so good, but it's also detriment to public health. There are reasons why there's, and we don't have this problem. There's reasons why there's higher rates of asthma and things where people don't have either won't or can't afford or don't have the, the political infrastructure to make these changes. That's part of the internalizing those external costs is a challenge. That's not part of the spreadsheet, but it is an important part of net zero and why we need to, why we need to move that way. What I think we need to, I I, I don't think this is happening here, but certainly one of the challenges we face as policy makers out in the world is that our policy cha choices, um, get politicized in the sense of, oh, if you're voting for something green, you must be, or if you're voting for a truck, you know, you must be in this. A lot of kind of really unfortunate agitation around this. The, the, the thing I come back to with this particular proposal is the money makes sense. And that's without even counting the, those externalities I talked about, it's a little bit wonky, but the state of the marketplace is now that this just on the spreadsheet is a good deal.

▶ 1:13:46 Speaker 1: Yeah. I, I don't have any further questions. I really appreciate you taking the time to answer those. Thank you. Vice Chair Aladin.

▶ 1:13:55 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Madame Chair. Thank you for being with us and trying to answer all our questions. I know there's a lot, uh, here, like, um, counselor Cheri mentioned, I am not an expert and I do have a lot of expertise in other area. This is not one of my expertise, but I do listen to our experts in our city and learn a lot, uh, from, um, Ms. Grover. And I trust your judgment. Um, I know for sure. One thing that I know for sure is that, uh, technology is always improving, and even if we wait five years, we are gonna know after five years that if we wait another five years, it's gonna be, uh, better. So I don't know how much it makes sense to keep waiting. Um, I know it is affecting our climate, it's affecting our city and community and our gen next generation. So this is something that I keep in mind. Um, I I'm just interested to, uh, to hear from you about the plan for training our mechanics. Um, how many hours and how many mechanic are we sending for this training?

▶ 1:14:59 Speaker 6: So our staff is typically three mechanics. We have two right now, and we're in the process of filling the third position. Um, I'm not sure what the specifics of the training would be. I just confirmed with both of the vendors that there would be a training component involved. Mm-hmm. Um, they, as I mentioned, the Battle Motors is offered to, to send our personnel out to Ohio, to the manufacturing facility, to, you know, get real familiar with the truck. Um, so we could send our mechanics if, if we chose to do that. Um, but I don't, I don't have a specific number of hours or, um,

▶ 1:15:36 Maya Jamaleddine: Um, so in that case, do we have a plan for coverage for those that are going, um, for this training? And also, are we going to have any overtime or do we have any expenses for these kind of trainings?

▶ 1:15:53 Speaker 6: Those are both really good questions. Um, that once we know more specifics about where the training would be and when and for how long, we would certainly have to consider. Um, you know, I would imagine, imagine if it were out of state, there would be some, uh, potentially some overtime hours.

▶ 1:16:10 Maya Jamaleddine: Okay. Okay. So that's in terms of the overtime. And would the manufacturer be covering the cost of the training or are they going to be responsible of that?

▶ 1:16:20 Speaker 6: They, I don't think they would be paying our overtime, but they, they had said, you know, if we wanted to go out to see the manufacturing, they could pay for the transportation and, and everything to, to get there. Um, yeah. And pretty good. Yeah. Sorry. And my understanding is that that does, uh, meet, I actually looked it up in terms of state ethics law, if, you know, can we accept a vendor sending us to, to their manufacturing facility? And, and I found that that is, that does meet the law.

▶ 1:16:52 Paul Brodeur: I think the answer is yes to it because it's not really free. It's rolled into the price. I mean, that is not unlike, um, what happens when we get a new piece of fire apparatus. Mm-hmm. There is, you know, there is a training component. The cheek would have to tell you exactly how that works. Um, and again, because of the rate at which we turn over fire trucks, which isn't ideal, there are significant changes. So there is that need for, for retraining.

▶ 1:17:22 Maya Jamaleddine: Okay, great. And, um, I,

▶ 1:17:26 Maya Jamaleddine: I had another question that I know it was important and I forgot. Um, you mentioned that you, we have, uh, a third position that we are looking to hire. Is it going to be in the job description that, you know, they do have this, uh, these skills and knowledge?

▶ 1:17:46 Speaker 6: That is a good question. The, the, we already posted the job description and, um, have made an offer. So I'm not sure if that was added in. When we change our job descriptions for our union personnel, we do need to go back through the union if we're adding things. And so a lot of times we use the same job descriptions because of the, uh, extra time it adds to the process. Sometimes quite lengthy to get approval for changes. Um, so I'm not sure if we've added that in, but I can check.

▶ 1:18:18 Maya Jamaleddine: Okay. And do you know on top of, uh, top of your mind if the new personnel that you, you made an offer do have those

▶ 1:18:27 Speaker 8: expertise?

▶ 1:18:28 Speaker 6: The person who we made the offer to has, um, has extensive experience with a wide variety of heavy duty vehicles. So, um, I'm not certain, since he hasn't signed the offer letter, I don't want to say where he works because I think that might be inappropriate, but works for a company that very likely has some electric vehicles.

▶ 1:18:54 Maya Jamaleddine: Okay. Would you be able to get back to us and let us know if they do have, uh, this training in their rec, like in their resume? And if this is something that we're also gonna have to look into and provide extra training? Sure. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.

▶ 1:19:11 Speaker 1: Councilor Stewart.

▶ 1:19:13 Speaker 4: Thank you, Madam Chair. So,

▶ 1:19:18 Robb Stewart: you know, I'll be blunt, um, I was not convinced the last time, and I want to give you the opportunity to convince me here now, because at this point I'm still, I still have concerns, um, and questions too. Um, for example, one of the questions that I have is, uh, you know, I, I get, I get the numbers. I agree, the numbers make sense now, right? They, I think they work for year zero, right? And you talk about the, the diesel truck versus the electric truck, and the cost benefit is in favor of the electric truck. But what I have not heard, and what I do not see when I do research, is how long these trucks last, how long that battery lasts. And that is a huge, huge concern on my part. So what kind of guarantee or warranty or knowledge do we have about these batteries lasting longer than 8, 9, 10 years?

▶ 1:20:14 Speaker 6: So the, the manufacturer's warranty initially, um, one company had a one or two year warranty, and the other had five, and I did negotiate five from both for the prices they were quoting. So we're, we have a five year, uh, guarantee on the batteries. Um, I also became aware of some state, um, regulations that are possibly going into effect. They wouldn't affect this purchase, but in the near term, the state is pushing for, requiring on these types of heavy duty vehicles, um, battery warranties of, in the six to seven year range. So that might be, you know, an indication of what's an expected range to which the manufacturers should be willing to sign and guarantee. Um, we are being told that these trucks, you know, I think a 10 to 12 year lifespan is, is what the manufacturers are telling us is typical. They expect to be typical. Um, so, and actually the, um, Highland fleet who does the lease arrangements, I believe they said they were leasing as a 10 year option. They were guaranteeing these trucks, um, these same trucks as a 10 year option. The, the finances for the lease option weren't nearly as favorable as what we see here. So that's why we're not bringing that option to you all. But I thought that was interesting that they are, um, having an arrangement where they take on all the risk and, and lease these trucks for 10 years. Right,

▶ 1:21:56 Robb Stewart: Right. Well, I have a tremendous amount of confidence and belief in the folks in this room. I have less confidence in what a manufacturer tells you in terms of what the lifespan is, especially when there's no history. So to me, that is still an open question and concern. So the second thing, and you're touching upon it is why haven't we considered leasing? I mean, that is a bit of a hedge. Yeah,

▶ 1:22:16 Speaker 6: I mean, we really did, we, we had a lengthy meeting with Highland and they came back to us with a proposal, and it's interesting, their proposal. Um, so the way they do it for the infrastructure, it's I believe 15,000 a year per plug. So they will come in, they'll put in the whole new electrical service, they'll put in the charging stations, and you pay 15,000 a year per plug. But the problem that we have is that right now we're looking at plugging in two small sedans and afford lightning and a and the trash truck and 15,000 a year for the infrastructure to plug in the trash truck when you're spending, you know, hundreds of thousands on the vehicle. Might make sense, but 15,000 a year for forever. Um, once they've invested in this infrastructure to plug in a sedan that probably doesn't even have a value of $15,000 anymore. In fact, I think we have one that we can't even get rid of. Um, we can't even fast judge that. That's, yeah, that's nine years old. So, um, the finances didn't work out for the whole picture, and so that's why we're not bringing the lease option to you as an option. It was just too expensive. The, I I can't remember what the annual cost was for the vehicle. Was it 50,000 or something? I,

▶ 1:23:33 Speaker 2: I

▶ 1:23:34 Robb Stewart: Partic I, I'm sorry. It's not like you don't have an option to charge these cards today. Right. These vehicles today, we

▶ 1:23:41 Speaker 6: Have a, a very don't inconvenient option. We plug them into a,

▶ 1:23:45 Speaker 2: We don't, we don't have any fleet, any, any, um, non-public chargers today.

▶ 1:23:50 Speaker 6: We, we plug it in with the accessory cord, you know, like your electric vehicle at home comes with an accessory cord that if you don't have a charging station, you can just plug it into an outlet. Mm-hmm. And we plug them into an outlet that can only charge one at a time. And so we have to alternate which car's plugged in on any given day. And then the Ford Lightning hasn't arrived yet, so we'd be in the same situation where we have electrical. Um,

▶ 1:24:17 Speaker 2: If you see the extension cord coming out of D P W, that's,

▶ 1:24:20 Robb Stewart: But, but what I'm hearing is, okay, you haven't, you have a lightning that, that makes sense to get the second plug. You have the first plug for the, the vehicle that it makes sense. And you have a nine year old vehicle that you want to get rid of anyways, so you wouldn't want to get a plug for that anyway. Well, not that,

▶ 1:24:32 Speaker 6: that's a diff that's a third vehicle that we're not even talking about. Okay. Now we have two sedans that run that we use and the Ford Lightning that's coming. We did, we looked at all the numbers holistically compared to what we've presented here. And the reason we didn't include them is because the cost was a lot higher. So we, here, we get three charging stations and the trash truck for, for 2 2 98, and if we're looking at 600,000 over the lifespan of the vehicle in lower maintenance costs and lower fuel costs, you

▶ 1:25:04 Robb Stewart: Know, but this is your big bet, and that's a hedge that you can, because I don't see these programs going away anytime soon. It's so early in the program. These, uh, these discounts, um, you know, it's, again, it's, we're chasing the grant money and that concerns me. You know, we're trying to, whereas we could've, um, we, we weren't presented this, you just kind of did it on your own and didn't even share it with us. Said Well, because to me that even though there might be a little bit more cost, it's a lot less risky. Right.

▶ 1:25:39 Speaker 6: It was a lot more cost though, over the lifespan of the vehicles. Okay. That's why we didn't present it

▶ 1:25:46 Robb Stewart: O over the life of the vehicles. But that's, if you have a three year lease, I mean, think about how people, when they lease cars, right? They move to a new place. They don't wanna buy a car, they wanna lease it for a couple years.

▶ 1:25:56 Speaker 6: I don't think these had a three year option though, because they're leasing you the infrastructure, they're building out your infrastructure for you. Mm-hmm. And so they were looking at 10 year time spans in the 10 year leases In the proposal that they gave us. Okay. Yeah. I don't think, you know, if you're paying 15,000 a year per charger, and they've spent, you know, we see that the numbers here, that the charging infrastructure costs 300,000. They're not gonna let you lease a vehicle from them for three years and then walk away and, you know, it doesn't pay for itself from their

▶ 1:26:27 Robb Stewart: End. So 10 year was the minimum lease that they're offered.

▶ 1:26:30 Speaker 6: That's my recollection. Is that your recollection? It was a 10 year arrangement

▶ 1:26:34 Paul Brodeur: Council in terms of the, the availability of the grants, um, and the, the proposition that they're gonna be around forever. I would love to think that that is true. But the grants are federal government programs, and to be somewhat un charitable to the federal government, it's going to close at the end of the month. So I don't think it is wise to, to, to assume that these programs are gonna be around for any significant length of time. I hope they are. And I would like to think that's the case, because that is really, in some respects, the only way we're gonna meet these goals. Um, but the nature of the discourse on the national level is certainly doesn't make me think that no matter what happens, these grant funds are gonna Be available Over time.

▶ 1:27:24 Speaker 6: Also, adding to that, the national grid incentives are such a huge component of what makes this financially viable now. Um, and what we've seen from those programs is that they tend to get smaller over time as more, you know, as the technology becomes more commonplace, they're not gonna offer everybody this size of incentives to put in charging infrastructure. Mm-hmm.

▶ 1:27:49 Speaker 4: Okay. So another question on this, the, um,

▶ 1:27:53 Robb Stewart: and it is what Mr. Ide talked about earlier is hybrid. Did you look into hybrid? We

▶ 1:28:00 Speaker 6: Did, yes. All three

▶ 1:28:01 Robb Stewart: Men. What was, what was the, um, decision or the,

▶ 1:28:06 Speaker 6: All of the manufacturers refused to give me any quotes for hybrid because they said they're not doing hybrid technology anymore for these

▶ 1:28:13 Robb Stewart: Oh, they're just, they're switching completely electric. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

▶ 1:28:16 Speaker 6: That's fair enough. I think at this point, um, you know, with a hybrid vehicle, you have to, you have to service and maintain both technologies, the EV and the diesel. And perhaps they don't feel that those economics work out for folks anymore. And so they're just, they're moving in the,

▶ 1:28:34 Speaker 2: The economics and the efficiency just isn't there when you're, when you have to, when you have two different systems on board.

▶ 1:28:44 Robb Stewart: Okay. Well, I, I, you know, I, I'm just gonna go back to 'cause you're, you're assuming that the battery's gonna last for 15 years. No, that's what, that's what you stated. I wrote it down. Um, when you did the analysis, you said the battery is gonna last 15 years for the trash truck.

▶ 1:28:58 Speaker 6: I didn't say that. I said 10.

▶ 1:28:59 Robb Stewart: That was the assumption that you made when you were doing the analysis that

▶ 1:29:03 Speaker 2: No, I No, no, no, no. I was, I was talking about the total, total cost of ownership that, that, that through this analysis through the laboratory. But that's just comparing apples to apples. They're just looking at total cost of ownership for the two types of vehicles over 15 years. And on, on the battery technology. Let me just say that through the Inflation Reduction Act, our federal government is sinking boatloads of money into local US manufacturing of both the minerals and the batteries. And there are all kinds of startups sprouting up all over the country around reusing and recycling batteries. So nobody knows what the future is, what we do with these batteries in five years, seven years, 10 years. That there, it is changing so quickly in the, in the federal investment in this component and the, and the manufacturing that is developing right now, today, the factories that are opening across the country is like something we've never seen before. So what, where we are today, I mean, we're, we're capitalizing on this opportunity, but it's something that's, that's known and done, but it's just gonna keep getting better and this vehicle is going to benefit from, from all of that. So as we even move forward with this one vehicle, um, there will be other ways to update it, to replace the battery, to do it in ways that are much less expensive than if we were to, than if we say bought this five years ago. It's just, it's just unbelievable what's happening out there. It's hard, it's hard to imagine which,

▶ 1:30:44 Speaker 2: which to me takes away the risk because, because it's just the technology is, and there's just so much money going into this, it's hard to imagine what's

▶ 1:30:55 Robb Stewart: Right. Right. Well, I do agree with, uh, you, Mr. Mayor, in terms, I think the word was intrinsic, that you're looking for the intrinsic cost. Um, I do agree that there are intrinsic costs on this. Um,

▶ 1:31:09 Robb Stewart: I just, I really, I have a real hard time looking at,

▶ 1:31:16 Speaker 4: um, this from a, I don't know. You know,

▶ 1:31:19 Robb Stewart: I just, as an aside, Madam Chair, there was a, a very interesting article that was put out fairly recently, and it talks about the cost of net zero and ultimately it is more expensive than what we have today. Uh, and that's something that I think as a council and as a

▶ 1:31:38 Robb Stewart: body, we have to recognize that there is a cost to going there, and this might be part of that cost if we want to actually do this. So I'll just leave it with that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

▶ 1:31:49 Speaker 1: Councillor Williams.

▶ 1:31:52 Speaker 2: Thank you. Um,

▶ 1:31:58 Ryan Williams: boy, I was listening to all of the conversation going on in the room tonight, and it struck me that I don't really fully understand the background behind some of the assertions that are being made. So, you know, I work for an organization that has a international, um, advocacy operation. Some of the work that we do is on electric trucks. Some of the people that I work with have been to manufacturer's offices. They've been to battery facilities. I talked, excuse me, I talk to them on occasion. I read the materials that they send. I haven't actually been to one of these plants for myself. Um, and I, I kinda wonder if there's an opportunity for some of us in the room to meet with some of these people, to go to some of these locations to learn firsthand for ourself. Um, if we don't already have that experience, what the reliability of these vehicles might be. Um, the scale of production and manufacturing that's happening, where the locations are, you know, who's being employed by these things. Um, in,

▶ 1:32:59 Ryan Williams: in your, in your, um, estimation, are electric vehicles reliable or not?

▶ 1:33:06 Speaker 6: Uh, yes. Yeah. Based on the conversations we had with New York City. Hmm. With Waste Management, um, and with Cambridge.

▶ 1:33:17 Speaker 6: Yes. And also, if you wanna see some electric vehicles and talk to some manufacturers, there's a large conference called Alt Wheels on Monday that we'll be going to. Or are you coming in that last year? Yes. Yeah. Um, I'll be going to with some of our operations staff who went last year and actually thought it was a fantastic opportunity. They even got to drive one of the heavy duty electric vehicles. Where is it? It's in Norwood, I think.

▶ 1:33:43 Speaker 2: Norwood. Okay.

▶ 1:33:45 Ryan Williams: Yeah. It's called Alt Wheels. I think it's on October 2nd. Maybe we could extend invitations unless there's a substantial cost behind

▶ 1:33:51 Speaker 6: It. I think it was like 50 or $80 to attend for the day.

▶ 1:33:54 Ryan Williams: Yeah. Why not? Let's send a round of invitations for the council to see if anybody's interested in going out and testing their theories on the liability. Yeah. Those are really fun. Ford com all the big manufacturers come In. Right, right. And all those manufacturers are making big commitments to electric vehicles right now. Yeah, they are. In fact, they're making, um, hundreds of millions of dollars of commitments all across the United States to match the billions of dollars of federal commitments that are coming down for electric vehicles. Um, and I'm sorry, my laptop died and so I don't have the packet. I always use my laptop. My laptop's actually powered by a lithium ion battery. Interestingly enough, it's, it's technology that came around in the 1970s. Uh, it's been around for, you know, 50 or 60 years. Not like the diesel engine, which was first, um, created in the 18 hundreds. But, um, you know, certainly something that's been here in my phone, in my watch in my laptop. Some people have 'em in their cars. Um, it's something that, uh, um, you know, we're all very familiar with and is a part of our everyday life. Um, but, so, because I don't have access to the packet, I don't know what's the actual classification size of the vehicle that we're talking about? Seven. That's a class seven. 'cause I heard people talking about, well, I'm not sure about reliability of Class eight. That's another kind of vehicle was

▶ 1:35:03 Speaker 6: Six. Yeah, it was six that I was mentioning.

▶ 1:35:05 Ryan Williams: You were talking about six. We were choosing between six and seven. Yeah. A Class eight vehicle is a semi-truck.

▶ 1:35:11 Speaker 6: Yeah. The, so the a class eight refuse truck is what our truck 26. Yeah. Right. So the truck that picks up your yard waste and the truck that picks up your trash and your recycling that republic come by with, those are all class eight. Right? They're kind of the standard, uh, full-size trash truck.

▶ 1:35:26 Ryan Williams: How many hours does the truck operate? Does this, let's say, let's say this theoretical, um, you know, trash truck

▶ 1:35:34 Speaker 6: About six hours a day.

▶ 1:35:35 Ryan Williams: Okay. So like a, like if I'm, I'm thinking about this, uh, this Class seven truck operates, you said

▶ 1:35:41 Speaker 6: About six hours a day.

▶ 1:35:42 Ryan Williams: Six hours a day. So like, I know a lot of people have expressed concern about reliability for long haul over road class eight semi tractor trailer trucks that operate, let's say 12 to 14 hours a day, or in some cases 19 to 20 hours a day, even though they're not supposed to. Right. 'cause of the, um, OSHA rules, um, and d o T rules. Um, but so it's, it's a different piece of equipment, has different purpose, different use, different use case. And, um, and so, um, you know, it strikes me that maybe we're comparing apples to oranges when we think about some of these really big electric trucks, which are, you know, they're, they're tough. It's tough. It's a tough sell to drive an electric truck from Massachusetts to California. You know, you have to charge it all along the way. Um, and these trucks, they're, if I'm, if I'm right about this, they're kind of like skateboards. They got the battery pack on the bottom, so like a traditional diesel truck's got fuel injections, it's got the air intake systems, it's got the turbo, it's got the, um, you know, the actual, uh, engine block itself. It's probably got, I don't know, like a thousand moving parts in the thing. Right? And the electric trash truck has one row of solid state lithium ion batteries. This tech that's been around for like, I don't know, you know, you know, um, 50, 60 years. And then those batteries, power motor hubs on the wheels, and the wheels are kind of, the wheels are kind of normal, right? The wheels, they have brake pads and rotors and all that stuff, you know, tires, everything else. Everything else on the truck is the same.

▶ 1:37:12 Speaker 6: Yeah. And that's where when we, when I came before you all the last time, I noted that we didn't wanna work with any truck manufacturers who were new to manufacturing trucks. Yeah. Because we wanted the only new part of the technology to be

▶ 1:37:27 Ryan Williams: Electric. It's just the battery pack electric. Yeah. That's all

▶ 1:37:29 Speaker 6: There is. And, and the, the components that allow that battery pack to power both the truck operation and the hopper, that's the big thing, is the, you know, it needs to be able to talk to and operate mm-hmm. The hopper as well. Right. And that's where Battle Motors has done this a bunch of times now. So, and they recommended the curb tender body because that's the one that they felt matched up best with the electric technology to operate the, the hopper.

▶ 1:37:58 Ryan Williams: Sure. So, you know, I, I feel like we've got some differences of opinion in the room. We've got some folks who really just don't think that electric trucks are, are, are reliable. They're not there yet. And I would love the opportunity to move them towards a different frame of mind. And I think it would be remarkable for us to take an invitation to travel out to one of these facilities and learn more about the tech from people who have expertise in the tech. I know people who do, but I don't have it myself. You guys are procurement folks and you've got some experience working with the technologies, but you're not experts in battery reliability or, you know, drivetrain or things like that. But certainly there are engineers and folks at these companies that could provide us with more information that could actually address the question of reliability. So we're not just chasing our tails. Well,

▶ 1:38:50 Speaker 6: That's where we, you know, as, as the folks working on this in the background, where we have to rely on folks like Mass, d e p who's telling us this is, like Martha was saying earlier, refuse trucks are the next logical place to go for, um, for purchasing heavy duty electric vehicles. And, um,

▶ 1:39:18 Speaker 6: and also the National Grid FAS program. The what

▶ 1:39:21 Speaker 2: Fleet Advisory Services program.

▶ 1:39:23 Speaker 6: They're saying the same thing. This is the vehicle 18 or 26, the two refuse vehicles are the first medium to heavy duty vehicles that you should be looking to replace with electric, because the technology is there. And that's, those are the ones that make sense. So we are not the experts on electric battery technology, but I have now had so many conversations with so many folks about this because we submitted this grant application last August. So we've been working on this since last July. Um, and talking to a lot of people, and you know, I, I trust that the folks at Mass d e p and at the National Grid Fast Program are giving us accurate information. 'cause they work with this day in and day out.

▶ 1:40:05 Ryan Williams: Does this funding opportunity this round, does it expire? Yes. We talked about this. I can't remember when.

▶ 1:40:11 Speaker 6: Yes. They've given us an extension until September, 2024 to have all of our infrastructure in place, our vehicle on the road. Okay. And our old vehicle scrapped. So we have, that's

▶ 1:40:20 Speaker 3: Part of the deal, right? Pulling

▶ 1:40:23 Speaker 6: The have to have the old vehicle scrapped and, and document that it has been pulled, not sold, or Yeah, it's

▶ 1:40:27 Speaker 2: Called the diesel emissions reductions.

▶ 1:40:32 Paul Brodeur: Mm-hmm. Counsel, to your point, um, and the expertise in how, like kind of the frame of mind of the staff and the kind of the, the theory behind this part of the, part of the net zero piece, um, is a policy that we've enacted called Electric First. Meaning we look at the technology, the opportunity, the cost of all the things that we're talking about here today. Um, and because it's a public investment, we, the, the policy recognizes the risks and price points. So they, I have not charged them and they pardon the expression and they have not taken it upon themselves to electrify.

▶ 1:41:24 Paul Brodeur: Electrify is, is the goal, but not within the, you know, not as if money is no object. Their job is to, is to keep the enterprise running with the best tools available in this case. And the best tool available by most objective, um, you know, science-based industry standards and metrics that, that are out there are that this will work. And that, that is the frame of mind with, in which we approach things like, like net zero, like the choice of electric vehicles, because they're very much is the impetus to just do what we've been doing. You know, you hear that all the time. We do, we need to stop just doing what we're doing, but then we kind of do it. We need to make intelligent choices, you know, data informed intelligent choices. That's what this is. The, the D P W does not have an interest in buying a truck. And they won't buy a truck if they think it's gonna crap out in five years. That doesn't do them any good. They are the folks that deliver the services. They are the people in the first instance that takes the call. Eventually I get the call, but that's fine. That's the way it should be. But there is no, there is no incentive, there is no value in pursuing not the least attractive options from, you know, based on their research and their professional perspective. I, I hope that's clear. This isn't like a pipe dream so that we can say, you know, look at us. We got a trash truck.

▶ 1:43:08 Speaker 6: And following up on that, I do want to mention in response to one of the questions that Mr. Ine raised earlier, we did look at electric and hybrid technology for the roll-off vehicle when we purchased that, uh, a year or two ago. And we also looked at electric technology for the street sweeper, which some of you may recall. I was here a couple of times about that purchase as well. Um, the street sweeper, when we purchased it, there weren't these grant opportunities. The, my recollection of the cost of an Electric Street sweeper, which was brand new technology at the time was 800,000. And I believe I came before you for a $260,000 appropriation for the sweeper that we bought with the roll off. It was similarly more than double the cost and with questions at the time on, you know, who would be manufacturing this and what would the options be, just that extra year. We're looking at the trash truck options and we're, we're faced with many manufacturers, many options, the industry moving in this direction. So, you know, we're not sort of haphazardly coming forward with, just because of the electric first policy, we're gonna always come to you with an electric first recommendation on these other two major purchases. We did not, we were not proponents of the electric options, and so we didn't bring them before the council. But on this one, based on our research, we truly believe this is the best option for the city. It's the best option environmentally. And the cost that we have now to get three fast chargers and the truck for under $300,000, it's, the risks in my mind are so low. Even if, if, if we have a five year warranty, which we will on the batteries, I think this is, this is a reasonable five year investment. $300,000. I hope the truck lasts 10 to 12 years. But I think at this price point, and for the three chargers, in addition, it's a reasonable cost. Even with a five year Wt, we expect it will last longer. We expect it will last longer. And we hope that it will last in that 10 to 12 year range. The batteries in the 10 to 12 year range,

▶ 1:45:18 Ryan Williams: Just to put that in perspective, that's $60,000 a year, $300,000 over five years. Um, I appreciate your answers. I would love to get an opportunity personally to learn more about these vehicles and validate my own biases and opinions and curiosities and see if I'm right or wrong. So, um, you know, I would love to, to go on my own dime. Let me know and I'll sign up and I'll, um, see if I can take some time off work for it. Um, I wanna, I want to leave with a very brief statement in the story. If you know, a lot of the discussion around climate change and, um, what's happening in different parts of the country has, I think for a long time felt very theoretical to people. It's felt like something that's on the horizon, but it's something that we don't really need to act on. Um, maybe it's not in our best interest. And I want to point out, share a very quick story. I, you know, I recently bought a new home and I went to get my home insurance and I called my insurer, um, who gives me my current insurance. And they said, I'm sorry, we're not actually, um, doing new business in Massachusetts anymore, and specifically in Middlesex County. And I said, why? And they didn't know. So I called another insurer, I said, I'd like to get home insurance through you. They said, I'm sorry, we don't, we can't insure your home. This literally happened to me last week. Um, and so finally I called another broker and we talked for a while and they said, how close to the ocean are you? And I said, uh,

▶ 1:46:40 Ryan Williams: out five, six miles maybe this really, this is a real conversation I had with a guy. And he said, oh, okay. I think that's what it is. We're re we're being really careful about insuring any homes that are that close to the ocean right now. Homeowners insurance providers are pulling outta California. They're pulling outta Florida, and they will be pulling out of some parts of Massachusetts. Homeowners insurance prices will be skyrocketing in Massachusetts and in New Hampshire because of risks of flooding, risks of increased storm activity, risks of fires, risks of hurricanes. So that's it. Thanks.

▶ 1:47:15 Speaker 1: Thank you. Councillor Williams. Um, anyone else for the first time? President Greg.

▶ 1:47:21 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, thank you all for being here. I, I don't have questions. I mostly just wanted to commend you both Elena and Martha, for coming back to us with what feels like and the mayor. But I know who I know who did the work, um, for, you know, we had a conversation, there were questions, there were concerns. You asked for more time. This body granted it to you. And I think you've come back with something that feels, um, holistic and forward thinking. And like it is thinking not just about how do we serve our residents best today, but how do we serve them best going forward. Um, and I really appreciate that. It is clear you have put a ton of work and thought into this and have pulled every lever that you can to make this not just cost effective, but really investing in our infrastructure. Um, I recognize, I mean, two things. The only cons constant in life has changed and that, you know, we all have different, um, comfort on the continuum of risk, which is, you know, where, where we all fall on the spectrum. I would like to see us taking advantage of things like this and not being so risk averse that we tend to fall behind. I think we as a body have recently dealt with some of the repercussions of those decisions like public safety, where we don't, we haven't stepped up and tried to make decisions that can feel a little scary or uncomfortable. Um, and that those have consequences too. So I'm really thrilled with what you've put before us tonight. I would make a motion to recommend for passage. Second

▶ 1:48:44 Leila Migliorelli: Motion recommend for passage made by President Gita, seconded by Councilor Carm Chaney on discussion. Councillor Repe.

▶ 1:48:52 Mark Garipay: Yeah, I just want to clarify. Um, I think the mayor said if we don't go forward with the um, refuse truck, we're not gonna need the charging station. Because I think that contradicts what was said when Mr. Troop was here. We need the charging station no matter what. Correct. Am I correct on

▶ 1:49:10 Speaker 6: That? Yeah. We need, we need the charging infrastructure. Either way. I think it was more, you know, maybe we don't need this level of chargings fast chargers. This, this exact proposal maybe isn't what we would do if we were just charging our sedans and our lightning. Yeah.

▶ 1:49:25 Paul Brodeur: Perhaps it's more of a holistic comment that if we, if we are, um, not gonna commit to the vehicles, it doesn't make a lot of sense to have to have charging structure.

▶ 1:49:35 Speaker 7: I'm sorry.

▶ 1:49:36 Paul Brodeur: It doesn't make a lot of sense to invest in charging charging infrastructure or for not committing to electrifying the fleet.

▶ 1:49:42 Speaker 7: Do we have any, any, do we have any other electric vehicles on order,

▶ 1:49:47 Speaker 6: On order? We have the Ford Lightning. Two, two. Yeah. Two.

▶ 1:49:50 Speaker 7: Right? So I mean, it makes sense that, I mean, you know,

▶ 1:49:55 Mark Garipay: oh, I think it makes perfect sense. Yes. To to to, I mean to, for the not, I'm not supporting the rep and tell you that, but the, uh, charging station now if it's 88,000, whether we buy the, it's through Volt track. Right. And on the last page it shows two grants for 210,000 from National Grid. So that's a separate,

▶ 1:50:16 Speaker 6: That's separate. Yeah.

▶ 1:50:17 Speaker 2: Those are incentives.

▶ 1:50:18 Mark Garipay: Incentives. So that's fa factored into the 88,000 of the cost of the, so whether the electric rubbish truck is purchased, we could still do the charging station for 88,000.

▶ 1:50:32 Speaker 6: I think the price goes up slightly because there are some sort of nuances of exactly what the Dira grant covers. Mm-hmm. Um, it may be more on the order of 120,000 if we did, if we don't do the grant.

▶ 1:50:49 Mark Garipay: Yeah. 'cause if, if you could get us that, that number before this goes up to a final vote, um, sure. 'cause I look at it, you get 200, 210,000 incentives. There was 2 98, your balance is 88. That's how I'm coming up with the numbers. If I'm doing it wrong, please let me know. But the two, um, incentives are through National Grid that I'm seeing on this, on this

▶ 1:51:12 Speaker 2: One. Yeah. But with National Grid, we have to deduct the grant that we're applying towards the charger.

▶ 1:51:18 Mark Garipay: That's right. Can you, can you just put that, um, in a memo for me just so I can decipher it and not, not tonight.

▶ 1:51:25 Speaker 7: Thanks.

▶ 1:51:29 Speaker 1: Okay. I had, uh, councilor Carm shady for a second time, or no? Uh, no. I wanted to make a motion to recommend for passage, which is why I raised my hand. So I got to second instead, which is great. Councilor Stewart for a second time.

▶ 1:51:43 Speaker 4: Thank You Madam Chair. Um, Ms. Prairie Cas what,

▶ 1:51:46 Robb Stewart: what kind of struck a bell to me is I'm a simple guy, right? Um, 300,005 years with warranty.

▶ 1:51:58 Speaker 4: I'll support that.

▶ 1:52:01 Speaker 5: Thank you.

▶ 1:52:02 Speaker 2: Lemme just point out that the truck is actually 2 0 8 is the net cost for the truck, which is,

▶ 1:52:09 Robb Stewart: But we're, we're talking the whole package because the whole package, the whole package, right? Yes. You get your charges. The warranty is the, and

▶ 1:52:17 Speaker 2: I'm, I'm referring to other

▶ 1:52:18 Robb Stewart: Previous comments. It's the warranty to me is that, is the important part Yes. Is that you're guaranteed that if there are issues, they'll come fix it for us and it's only gonna cost $300,000.

▶ 1:52:30 Speaker 6: So the, the five year warranty is on the battery.

▶ 1:52:33 Robb Stewart: On the battery, yeah. Okay. Well that, and that's probably the main thing that you're gonna worry about anyways. Right? Right. Uh, because, you know, normal battery I got, I was texting with someone that knows a lot about this, um, normal battery. It should be fine for those five years, but it's, if you get a default defective battery, it's gonna be, it's gonna come up as a problem pretty quickly. And that can be very expensive if you don't have this warranty and that this is a, I think a great mitigation of that risk. So. Alright.

▶ 1:53:06 Speaker 8: Thank you

▶ 1:53:09 Speaker 1: Mr. Clerk. Thank you. Thank you. Can you please call the role

▶ 1:53:13 Speaker 2: Vice chair Jamal? Yes. Councillor Ella? Yes. Councilor Eccles? Yes. Councillor Repe? No.

▶ 1:53:22 Speaker 2: Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Chetty. Yes. Councillor Williams? Yes. President Gita? Yes. Chair Elli? Yes. That's eight. Yes. One day. Wonderful. Motion passes

▶ 1:53:35 Leila Migliorelli: And this order will be brought to the next full council meeting. Thank you all for attending. This was a great presentation. Very thorough. Appreciate it. And now don't go anywhere, Ms. Pellis. Yes. Because now we have appropriation 2024 dash four and appropriation from Capital Stabilization 8 4 0 5 in the amount of $40,000 to D P W facilities. 4 0 2 for the purposes of replacing the asphalt roof shingles at the East Foster Fire Station. The current balance. I already said it. Um, please go ahead.