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Australia is a pretty awesome case for EVs. It's a huge country and very sparsely populated. Which also means fuel stations are sparsely distributed. People hav
by jillesvangurp 3y ago
Australia is a pretty awesome case for EVs. It's a huge country and very sparsely populated. Which also means fuel stations are sparsely distributed. People have farms there that rival the size of some countries.
That means the logistics of getting fuel where it is needed are non trivial. Fuel has to be imported and then transported over huge distances. This is costly. For example, a lot of the mining industry happens in some of the most remote corners of the country. It depends on huge amounts of diesel being trucked over very large distances just so they can keep digging and transporting iron ore, coal, and other things they mine.
Battery electric alternatives have been creeping into this space and are a huge cost saving because the electricity can be produced locally with cheap solar energy. And there's plenty of innovation around that in Australia. There are 200 tonne road trains that run on pallet batteries that can be swapped in a few minutes and are charged using (typically) solar energy. These are not fancy new Tesla semis but converted old diesel trucks where they just junked the diesel internals and put a new drive train + battery in. Super pragmatic and it works.
Some electrical trucks there run downhill with huge loads and are net energy producers: they generate more via regenerative braking than they require to go back up hill empty. Insane when you start thinking about that. This is not breaking any thermodynamic laws. You just mine iron ore or whatever at a certain altitude and then transport it to sea level. The altitude difference is potential energy. And with many tonnes of useful load, that's a lot of energy. The truck arrives with a full battery and then drives back uphill.
Despite years of conservative pushback on EVs and solar, they are switching the country over to clean energy regardless. EVs are now rapidly getting more popular there. There is no domestic car industry to protect. A lot of the popular cars come from Japan, Korea, or China. So, unlike the US, Australia has a lot of BYD models on the road already; and probably a few other Chinese manufacturers are active there. Tesla is popular of course. And I suspect Kia is doing some nice business as well there. Japan is a bit problematic with Toyota still pretending this isn't happening right now.
- Symbiote 3y agoAre there any/many large mines with only road access? I'd expect most bulk supplies to be delivered by rail, on the same line used to export the ore.
- jillesvangurp 3y agoMost mines have roads that are installed and maintained by the mine owner. Same with rails, power lines, water pipes, etc. Mines are mostly not conveniently located close to infrastructure but instead located in the middle of nowhere. Any infrastructure around them is there only because there is a mine. Rail is nice when you have it. But it's expensive to install; especially in rough terrain. North West Australia is pretty empty. The Australian rail network is pretty much non existent there. Most of the mines there are thousands of miles away from the nearest station. Distances are huge.
- Symbiote 3y agoMy question was whether fuel was delivered by road train, or railway train, as I was surprised you chose supplying mines as your example. Public railways and stations are irrelevant, North West Australia has plenty of private tracks [1], and I've found this site [2] which says some of the mines own rail tankers for fuel. So for at least those mines, acquiring liquid or gaseous fuel is easy (safe + cheap). [1] https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ [2] https://www.pilbararailways.com.au/roy/roy.php https://www.pilbararailways.com.au/roy/roy.php, https://www.pilbararailways.com.au/bhp/waggons.php https://www.pilbararailways.com.au/bhp/waggons.php
- defrost 3y agoWestern Australias Pilbara region exports close to a billion tonne of iron ore per year - inland mine sites are supplied by road train (prime mover trucks + trailers), and move iron ore by rail via some of the longest, heaviest trains in the world (video search pilbara iron ore trains). Some mine sites have associated towns, others have full FiFo (fly in | fly out) work forces who roster multiple days on (and sleep on site) multiple days off. All the large mines have rail access as the tonnages dwarf what 100 tonne haulpaks can carry for 100+ km from inland to the ports. Rio Tinto + Fortescue Metals (and others) are all transitioning to electric | hydrogen truck fleets, trialling hydrogen trains, etc.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoUsing a forklift to do a battery swap on a class 8 truck is genius, IMO. There are a bunch of reasons why charging beat swapping for consumer vehicles, but most of those reasons don't apply to trucks on commercial routes. And pretty much every destination for a truck has a forklift. No need to build fancy robots. https://www.januselectric.com.au/ https://www.januselectric.com.au/