BRONX, New York — At the turn of the century, a New York City study found that children growing up in this densely populated borough had some of the highest asthma rates in the nation. In the Hunts Point neighborhood, home to the largest food distribution center on the East Coast, more than 1 in 5 elementary school children had asthma. Diesel trucks, which run in and out of distribution centers all day and night, were blamed.
“Congressman José Serrano approached us about this report of high asthma in the South Bronx,” said Simon Bergson, founder, president, and CEO of Manhattan Beer Distributors (MBD), one of the largest beverage distributors in the U.S. “He asked if we’d be willing to do something to minimize the diesel fumes.”
Using some federal subsidies available at the time, Manhattan Beer retrofitted 15 of its 200 heavy-duty diesel trucks to run on John Deere compressed natural gas (CNG) engines. “We did it, honestly, only because I thought it was the right thing to do.”
The private fleet’s first CNG-powered truck began operations in January 2001. Twenty years later, Bergson hasn’t stopped looking for ways to reduce his fleet’s carbon footprint as his company’s operations have expanded. Half of the fleet’s more than 400 trucks now run on CNG.
The fleet became even cleaner on Aug. 12 when Volvo Trucks North America (VTNA) delivered its first VNR Electric truck to an East Coast fleet. MBD expects to have five VNR Electrics in operation by the end of the year. And the company has plans through its local Volvo Trucks dealership, Milea Truck Sales and Leasing, to buy 35 VNR Electric trucks a year for the next four years as it works toward a completely diesel-free fleet by 2025.
Ditching diesel
“When we started this program back in 2001, my goal was to be diesel-free by 2020,” Bergson said during a roundtable discussion with trucking industry media. “It didn't come to fruition, mainly because the company also kept growing. And my fleet went from 200 to 400. So you know, that was good news, bad news.”
Manhattan Beer’s fleet includes more than 160 Volvo VNR and VNL CNG Class 8 trucks and on-site CNG filling stations at its five facilities in New York City, Long Island, and the Hudson Valley. To support its new VNR Electric trucks, MBD installed three Level 3 DC fast chargers at its Bronx facility. They are capable of charging the Volvo trucks up 80% in 70 minutes.
When it first started converting to alternate fuels, Manhattan Beer’s fleet burned about 1.5 million gallons of diesel per year. That is now down to 350,000 gallons, according to Juan Corcino, MBD’s senior director of fleet operations and sustainability.
Corcino said that another benefit of moving from diesel is the trucks need less maintenance. “By going to CNG, you eliminate about 40% of all the parts that can break down on a truck, and you reduce the maintenance and have a more reliable vehicle.”
He also noted that he doesn’t have to worry about diesel freezing in the fleet’s CNG trucks during the harsh New York winters. “Transitioning to electric allows us to go deeper into a maintenance-free truck, where this truck doesn't require an oil change,” Corcino said. “It doesn’t get affected by cold weather. So we're not only looking at an environmental-friendly truck, we're looking at much more efficient trucks for our job.”
The environmental benefit is the big bonus at first for MBC. BEVs need subsidizing to get going. Once they are more prevalent, “we foresee prices to go down and be more affordable to the point that you can afford the truck without an incentive and Volvo is working on reducing the price,” Corcino said.
The total cost of ownership for BEV trucks could match diesel equipment by the middle of the decade—depending on how battery technology develops, according to Peter Voorhoeve, VTNA president. Right now, he said, electricity is cheaper than diesel. And while the batteries that power Class 8 trucks, such as the VNR Electric, are one of “the most costly—or very costly components—as battery technology develops and energy density increases, the battery cost will go down. How quickly they will go down is a little bit difficult to say.”
‘Huge event’ for New York
On the hottest day in New York this year—as the late morning temperature continued to rise above 90 degrees—a large gathering of local dignitaries and Manhattan Beer employees celebrated the VNR Electric’s delivery. Politicians noted what a big moment it was for the largest city in the U.S. to get a taste of a cleaner future.
“Manhattan Beer Distributors has been leading for decades in this space of what it means to be a good neighbor to communities like the South Bronx,” Amanda Septimo, who represents the South Bronx in the New York General Assembly, said during a press conference earlier in the day.
“I’m from Hunts Point. I grew up not far from here,” she said. “We hear the phrase ‘environmental justice’ and think that it means just the environment. But we lose sight of what the ‘justice’ part of it means. The ‘justice’ part of environmental justice means that it’s really not fair that just because you are born in the South Bronx that you have a higher propensity to develop asthma in your lifetime.”
Manhattan Beer Distributors’ Volvo VNR Electric purchases were assisted by state and city subsidies funded through New York State’s Volkswagen settlement funds, through the New York City Department of Transportation’s NYC Clean Trucks Program. New York State’s Volkswagen settlement plan, Clean Transportation NY, was developed to reduce emissions in major transportation corridors, including Hunts Point, by funding zero-emission vehicles and equipment.
“These are the types of programs that really focus on the future,” Septimo said. “I want to thank Manhattan Beer Distributors for making sure that we all understand that a double bottom line can exist. That you can do good work, that you can make money, that you can be successful. And you don’t have to cost the communities that you exist in.”
VTNA’s Voorhoeve likened the event to an Olympic relay team. “We needed to work together to get to the finish line today,” he said during the press conference. “We played one role in this relay race—and that was by developing the truck, which we started in 2018. We’re now live. This is not a pilot or a tryout. This is just a normal commercial operation and it’s a normal part of our offering.”
Voorhoeve credited the NYC DOT’s Clean Truck Program, vehicle charging company Gilbarco Veeder-Root, Milea Truck Sales, and others as part of the relay team that led to the first BEV heavy-duty truck to begin operations in the Northeast. Milea is the first Volvo EV Certified Dealer on the East Coast, joining five certified dealers on the West Coast. “We’re really, really grateful for the opportunity,” Voorhoeve said later in the day. “This is a huge step. It’s a huge event.”
While long-haul BEVs are further away, the regional distribution of a company such as MBC in a congested metropolis “is the ideal location to get started,” Voorhoeve said.
MBC’s first VNR Electric will service customers in Manhattan, where routes originating in the Bronx range from 15 miles to 35 miles and take six to nine hours, Bergson said. The stop-and-go nature of delivery on Manhattan benefits electric vehicles because of regenerative braking.
Corcino said the electric Volvo trucks could handle any of MBD’s New York City routes—which average about 60 miles. While the VNR Electric trucks will begin on shorter routes, they would be capable of handling the longer city routes for two days on one charge, according to routing projections by Volvo and MBD.
Bergson, who founded Manhattan Beer with one truck in 1978, always looks for ways to show his company’s environmental friendliness in an industry that often gets criticized for its carbon footprint. For example, MBD installed a 191,000 sq ft solar farm seven years ago on its Bronx warehouse roof. It also has smaller solar farms—that are still more than 100,000 sq ft—on its Brooklyn and Suffern, New York, facilities.
“It was really just the right thing to do—and it does cost a little bit more money,” he said of phasing out diesel trucks. “If anything, it costs more, not less. I did think from a marketing perspective that if there were a customer out there and they had the option to buy from the Budweiser distributor or the Manhattan Beer guy who sells brands other than Budweiser—and the Manhattan Beer’s delivering on a clean energy vehicle versus the other guy who’s delivering on a diesel. Maybe the customer would take our selection.
“There was a thought process that I could market it a certain way,” he continued. “But you know, it is the right thing to do for our planet, for our future, and for our community.”
