As part of its green agenda, New York City had decided to convert its fleet of garbage trucks, numbering in the thousands, to electric.

However, there was one problem because the garbage trucks had also been adapted to serve as snow plows to clear the city’s 19,000 miles (ca. 30,578 km) of streets when winter storms hit.

The transformation of its diesel-powered fleet to electric came to a grinding halt after city officials discovered the seven electric-powered garbage trucks it had purchased at a cost of $523,000 each, only lasted four hours when used as snow plows.

It seems that battery-powered electric vehicles don’t like winter and the cold, of course, most people already knew that.

READ: New York sees failure in plan to convert garbage trucks to electric

Early this week a story went viral when a Virginia man complained that he was forced to cancel his Christmas Day plans when his Tesla refused to charge in the cold weather.

It was 19 degrees Fahrenheit and the battery was at 40%.

When he plugged his vehicle into a supercharger, the percentage did not change and as the weather started getting colder he noticed that his battery’s charge was actually decreasing. READ: Tesla owner says he had to cancel Christmas plans because car would not charge in freezing weather