Nearly two years after the city of Vancouver began looking for an all-electric street sweeper to replace its existing fleet of diesel-powered sweepers, the city has yet to make a purchase. “To date, we have yet to demo an all-electric sweeper that meets our need for 16 hours of runtime within a 24-hour period,” said Brian Potter, operations superintendent for the city’s Public Works department. In March 2023, Global Environment Products brought its M4EV electric plug-in street sweeper to Vancouver for a demonstration. Although city officials and staff were impressed by the first-of-its-kind sweeper and its zero-emission technology, the hefty price tag was an obstacle. The zero-emission vehicles cost upward of $700,000 — about double the price for diesel sweepers. The city currently has four street sweepers running routine shifts. The city has looked at other electric and hybrid sweepers since that first demonstration. “We did recently demo a hybrid sweeper that met the 16-hour runtime need; however, the cost difference between the diesel and hybrid option was approximately $300,000,” Potter said

Potter said Public Works submitted vehicle options for consideration, but it was told the city’s stormwater fund could not support the additional cost. The city is scheduled to replace a sweeper in 2025. “As we do with each replacement opportunity, we will demo electric, hybrid and diesel-powered sweepers, attempting to find a unit that meets our runtime requirements, meets or exceeds the performance requirements of the replaced unit, and falls within our allocated budget for replacement,” Potter said. Replacing the city’s diesel-powered street sweepers with either electric or hybrid models is part of the city’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Vancouver’s climate plan, passed in 2022, calls for reducing emissions from municipal operations by 80 percent by 2025. Potter said it may take time for the market to deliver cost-competitive options that meet the city’s needs.

“Our fleet team is committed to integrating cleaner, more advanced technologies whenever possible,” he said. Public Works will also be working closely with the climate team next year to identify and apply for state grants that can offset the cost premiums for these options, Potter said. “When we completed our most recent (greenhouse gas) inventory update in 2023, we found that our fleet’s switch from using traditional diesel to lower-carbon renewable diesel fuel was the largest single factor in reducing municipal (greenhouse gas) emissions since 2019,” he said. “So, they do have something of a reputation to uphold as the sustainability champion here at the city.”

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