UT Knoxville Takes Delivery of McNeilus Volterra ZFL Electric Refuse Truck
The zero-emission collection vehicle will run daily campus recycling routes for UT Knoxville Facilities Services.
Source: McNeilus ↗
McNeilus Truck and Manufacturing, Inc. delivered a McNeilus Volterra ZFL electric refuse and recycling collection vehicle to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where it will run daily campus recycling routes for UT Knoxville Facilities Services.
The order was secured through McNeilus dealer Siddons-Martin Environmental Group. The university selected the Volterra ZFL after evaluating purpose-built electric collection options against a grant-funded procurement and delivery timeline, with McNeilus’s refuse and recycling industry experience cited as a factor in the decision.
The truck was built at McNeilus’s Murfreesboro, Tennessee, manufacturing facility. Campus recycling routes present conditions well-suited to electric operation: frequent stops, low speeds, tight service areas, elevation changes and heavy pedestrian traffic. The electric platform also allows early-morning collections near residence halls and academic buildings at lower noise levels than diesel equipment.
Facilities Services plans to track energy consumption, reliability, maintenance requirements, operator experience, route performance, operating costs and emissions reductions compared with its conventional fleet. The university intends to use that data to assess where additional electrification makes operational and financial sense.
