A memorandum of understanding (MOU) has been signed to supply electric utility vehicles to the Australian mining sector, which experts say could encourage broader uptake of electric utes across the country.
The billion-dollar agreement between SEA Electric and Mining Electric Vehicle Company (MEVCO) will see SEA Electric source a range of Toyota's HiLux and LandCruiser utes, and convert them to electric using the company's registered SEA-Drive power system.
MEVCO has committed to ordering 8,500 vehicles over five years, which it would supply to Australian resources companies.
President of Asia Pacific for SEA Electric, Bill Gillespie, said demand for electric utes in Australia's infrastructure and mining sectors was "huge" and had recently "ramped up".
"In the past 12 months it's gone from almost nothing to companies saying, 'Look, if you can make an electric HiLux or an electric ute of any type, we will order at scale because we need to do it straight away'," he said.
SEA Electric will convert the vehicles at its facility in Dandenong, Victoria, and is looking to expand manufacturing into New South Wales and other mining-focused states.
Electric transition 'a commercial reality'
SEA Electric said it aimed to convert up to 4,000 vehicles per year, and more than half the 2023 allocation had been pre-sold.
MEVCO chief executive Matt Cahir said there was a large mining and resource services industry fleet to target.
"There are about 25,000 HiLuxes per year sold into mining, but mining services is about three times that in terms of the number of vehicles used," he said.
Mr Cahir would not confirm which companies had made agreements with MEVCO, but said "pretty much every major marquee mining company" was on the list.
Curtin University sustainability professor Peter Newman said running a fleet of electric utes on mine sites was "very clearly an obvious thing to do".
"The reality is, in Australia we've got a lot of sunshine out with these mines and they can be running off that," he said.
"Diesel is a very expensive commodity now, it's also dangerous and difficult to deal with, and the transition away from it is not that hard."
Given the scale of Australia's resources sector, Professor Newman said he expected vehicle manufacturers would be "kicking themselves" if they did not target the industry with electric utility vehicles earlier.
"All of [the mining companies] have to switch over, and most of them are planning by 2030 … it's a commercial reality that they must do this," he said.
"We haven't missed the boat but, gee, we were close to it."
Mining transition could encourage others
Mr Gillespie said he was under no illusions that the mining industry would "flip the switch" and convert to a 100 per cent electric vehicle fleet overnight, but said there was plenty of opportunity for the company.
"I think it's a transition," he said.
"I don't think we're going to run out of work to do in Australia in terms of electrifying the utility market."
Professor Newman believed the uptake of electric utility vehicles at Australian mine sites would encourage drivers across the country to transition.
"More than 50 per cent [of people] want an EV to be their next vehicle, [but] they aren't yet available to them at a price or reasonable time," he said.
"We've got a way to go to fix this market up, but the demand is definitely there."
