Meet EVie, Fremantle’s new electric rubbish truck

The days of being awakened in the wee hours by the rumble of the rubbish truck are numbered. The hum of electric-powered rubbish trucks is soon to be the new norm. If you remembered to put the bins out, a future of uninterrupted sleep awaits. If you didn’t, tough luck, but at least you will no longer have to make a mad dash into the street in your undies.  

Over the next four weeks, the City of Fremantle is trialling EVie, an electric-powered rubbish truck that forms part of a trial to assess the performance of EVs in local conditions. 

Fremantle Mayor Brad Pettitt said if the trial is successful, it will pave thew ay for the City’s entire waste collection to go electric. 

“Being a zero-carbon council is one of the key commitments in our One Planet strategy,” Pettitt said. “A normal rubbish truck uses about 500 litres of diesel fuel and produces more than 1.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every week.” 

“At the moment EVie will be charged using mains power, but there’s the potential for electric trucks to be charged using 100% renewable energy in the future,” Pettitt continued. “The electric trucks are also cheaper to run – which will deliver savings to ratepayers – and they’re much quieter, which is great news for people who like a morning to sleep in.”  

The City of Fremantle has engaged waste management company Cleanaway to perform the trial. According to State Municipal Manager Daniel Le Provost, Cleanaway was one of the first waste collection contractors in Australia to introduce electric rubbish trucks. 

“Charging takes about 10 hours, and we expect to get about eight hours of running time, but that depends a lot on travel distances and also the style of driving,” said Le Provost, “so we’ll be working closely with the City and the driver to optimise the vehicle’s performance.” 

It seems then that the days of seeing rubbish trucks drag race each other through the streets is over too, we can only hope EVie looks as fun to ride behind as its grumbling ancestor. At the very least, at least garbos will finally be able to hear themselves think. 

The City of Fremantle is quietly building itself a name among sustainable local government. The City recently updated its Sustainable Building Policy including provisions for a village micro-grid, and, much like the case with EVie, the City is always eager to try out new sustainable proposals, such its approval to turn the Old South Freo tip into a solar farm.