Food Vendors Ditch Noisy Generators As City Explores Cleaner Power Options

By Marina Samuel, The City

July 30, 2025, 5:00 a.m.

For the last 25 years, Elsayed ‘Mando’ Elgammal has sold halal food from his cart in front of LaGuardia Community College. Like most food vendors in New York City, Mando depended on a small Honda generator to power his refrigerator, gyro machine, deep fryer and lights during his 10-hour shifts.

That was until 2023, when he had bought a Joule Case rechargeable lithium-ion battery after receiving one from the nonprofit Street Vendor Project to test out as a part of a pilot program exploring low-carbon, renewable energy alternatives to propane tanks and gas or diesel generators.

The loud-humming generators, which are typically designed for short-term or emergency use, emit harmful pollutants, with a particularly great health risk for the vendors, who work inches away from the exhaust. Generators also break down frequently and require replacement every two years, racking up steep maintenance costs.

Still, most of the estimated 20,500 street vendors who sell food in New York City consider generators to be the only option to power their operations.

Now, the Mayor’s Office on Climate & Environmental Justice (MOCEJ) has launched a broader initiative with the Street Vendor Project to explore battery-powered alternatives that could potentially electrify food carts across the city.

As a part of the first phase of the effort, known as NYC Clean Powered Carts, the city office is putting meters on some vendors’ generators to measure their electricity usage and gauge what level of battery power they might need if they switch. Because food vendors have varying energy needs, some vendors may need more than one battery a day, or may need a stronger alternative to a battery.

“There are so many challenges that the vendors face to actually find the right product,” said Mohammed Attia, managing director of the Street Vendor Project.

“You have some vendors who run their business eight hours a day and others who run it 18, 20 hours a day. For all these folks, it would be extremely difficult to identify one solution or one size [battery] that would fit all of their needs,” he added.

The rechargeable battery that powers Elgammal’s cart. Credit: Marina Samuel/THE CITY

Currently the city is collecting data and surveying vendors on their generator usage and whether they would be interested in trying out alternative energy sources like the batteries. Eventually, the city is aiming to launch a pilot program that would test out charging stations in public areas.

“MOCEJ’s overall goal is to determine scalable solutions for mobile food vendors to transition away from generators and towards clean sources of power, and to identify where infrastructure is needed to support this transition,” said Kimberly Winston, director of external affairs at the office.

For Mando, the battery has been a major upgrade from his gas generator. He used to spend $1,200 for a generator every two years, $6 a day on gasoline and at least $150 for each repair, which would happen every few months. In comparison, his Joule Case battery cost $5,000 up front, but he pays only $2 a day to charge it in the commissary where he cleans and parks his cart overnight. By contrast, in the two years since he has had the battery, he has only sent it to be repaired once, and the company gave him a replacement battery to use in the interim.

And the savings are not the only benefit.

Mando recalled his old generator spewing black smoke. On hot days, his employees would open the window for some fresh air, only for soot to blow in, blanketing their face and arms.

“Sometimes when we opened the window, the gas smell got into the food,” said Mando. “It is so nasty.”

In the Street Vendor Project’s initial study, only 20% of vendors surveyed said they were concerned about the health effects of their fuel sources. Instead, for many vendors, the main obstacle to switching to battery power is the up-front cost, not health concerns.

The price of the battery depends on the size and electricity usage of the food cart. A small battery can cost as little as $1,500 for a push cart, but prices can go much higher for carts with grills. One vendor who owned a large shish kabob cart paid up to $15,000, said Attia, in addition to the cost of modifying his cart to hold the battery.

A lower Manhattan food vendor uses a generator to power his cart, July 29, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

While the city’s study is currently focusing on food carts, food trucks have much larger energy needs and may require different solutions. Simply installing a battery may not cut it.

Longtime food vendor William Arevalo had a small white meter placed in the outlet of his food cart’s generator by MOCEJ for a week, as part of the data collection, but a battery might not be strong enough to power his two ice cream trucks. Arevalo said that he temporarily connected his ice cream truck to the electrical grid when he vended in Orchard Beach and loved it, but that is not an option in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, where he operates his food carts and ice cream trucks.

The new effort is not entirely unprecedented: the city experimented with using curbside outlets that connect to the electrical grid in a 2014 pilot. But large-scale implementation would require significant financial investment to build out power-supplying pedestals.

Transitioning to a battery for his food carts would be an additional expense for Arevalo, who already spends $200,000 a year in permit fees to the Parks Department for his two carts and two trucks in the park alone. Arevalo also mentioned that his profits have gone down since the pandemic due to increased competition in the park from unlicensed vendors. A typical Saturday in the park would bring in $4,000 a day, but now he only makes $1,000.

“If the city can pay for our battery that would be good. It is too expensive to buy,” said Arevalo.

The father of three says all his hard work is worth it for what his vending has given his family; brimming with pride, he showed off pictures of his daughter who just became an engineer and his son who is just starting medical school.

The city is also considering installing battery cabinets in public areas with clusters of vendors, allowing for them to safely charge their batteries overnight, without the fire risks that have plagued e-bike batteries.

Attia said that surveying different vendors and experimenting with different solutions is important so they can “reach a point where we can say in a confident way that the technology is working” — and make the case to vendors for a widespread transition.

This press release was produced by The City. The views expressed here are the author’s own.