During the great depression I remember a lady in our neighborhood who had an electric car. It was built in Indianapolis and had giant batteries. The car was quiet and was a boon with gas rationed in WWII. When I came back to the states from duty in the Pacific in 1945, I was in Philadelphia and saw big electric delivery trucks servicing Horn & Hardart restaurants. The Inquirer used them to deliver their newspapers, too. They were all ahead of their time.
Indiana is the center of development of electric car batteries and a new plant in Elkhart will soon begin production of the Think City electric automobile. Navistar has announced that it has been awarded a $39 million grant to develop a mid-size electric truck and will build several hundred for testing in 2010. Intended for urban use, they seem promising for the cleaning industry. If the tests go well we could see these trucks on the streets in about three years.
The Think City and the small Navistar trucks will be battery operated and rechargeable by simply plugging them into a 110 outlet at night. Their range and speed should be adequate for a city cleaning operation. Four other manufacturers are working on similar electric vehicles and even some big diesel rigs may come to market soon with hybrid models.
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