New Energy Transport partners with Windrose & Multiquip to complete Australia’s longest single-charge electric truck delivery

New Energy Transport (NET) recently teamed up with Windrose and Multiquip to complete the longest single-charge electric truck delivery ever conducted in Australia.

The 480km round-trip included a 36 tonne GCM delivery leg from Multiquip’s Picton site (80km south of Sydney) to Beresfield, just outside Newcastle, and a return leg with an empty trailer.

In addition to completing the delivery with zero emissions, the electric prime mover was able to reduce the total trip time by 12%, thanks to its ability to maintain highway speed limits going uphill.  

The partnership comes after the Australian Government recently set its new emissions target of 62-70% by 2035. With an 82% emissions reduction target for the electricity sector by 2030, focus is rapidly shifting to transport which is on track to become the highest emitting sector in the Australian economy by 2030.

Within the transport sector, road freight accounts for 40% of all emissions, and heavy vehicles dominate this share. Australia is the second most road-freight-dependent country in the world. Despite making up only 3% of all commercial vehicles, heavy articulated trucks in Australia are responsible for nearly 80% of all tonne-kilometres making them a high-impact target for decarbonisation.

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The demonstration is part of an MoU between NET and Multiquip to explore joint opportunities to deploy electric trucks into Multiquip’s supply chain and accelerate the transition to sustainable road freight.

“New Energy Transport is a new kind of trucking company. By combining low-cost renewable energy, high-speed charging and electric prime movers, New Energy Transport offers zero-emission road freight at diesel-based prices” says NET Co-CEO Daniel Bleakley “We’re incredibly proud to be working with Multiquip to demonstrate the awesome capabilities of heavy electric trucks.”  

“This has been the longest single-charge electric trucking demonstration in Australia to date and proves that it’s possible to do zero-emission road freight in a cost competitive way with diesel-based freight.”

Multiquip is no stranger to innovation. The highly diversified company has over 40 years’ experience in engineering and transport. With its own fleet of over 500 trucks, Multiquip delivers around 50,000 tonnes of feed throughout NSW every week making it a critical part of Australia’s food supply chain.

“Multiquip is a really diverse business. We support the poultry industry around Australia.” says Multiquip’s National Compliance Manager David Muir.

“We’re always looking at different ways of improving our operations. So, with the opportunity to do something like this with an electric vehicle, as opposed to traditional diesels, it gives us a chance to see how it performs and how it would actually integrate into our business.”

“It’s been a really exciting trial for us. It’s being part of the future and seeing how this is going to progress in this country. It’s amazing” says Muir.

Reduced delivery times

An additional exciting outcome of the demonstration was a substantial time saving for the delivery. Compared to Multiquip’s regular diesel truck deliveries, the Windrose electric prime mover was able to complete each leg of the trip 20 minutes faster than usual, shaving a whopping 40 minutes off the total trip time.

Conventional diesel trucks slow down going up hills which reduces the average speed they’re able to hold for longer trips. Multiquip’s average speed on highways on this route is generally around 85km/h with its diesel trucks. During NET’s demonstration, the Windrose electric truck was able to hold an average speed of around 98 km/h because it was able to maintain the speed limit going up hills.

NET Co-CEO Fredrik Pehrsson is a former head of innovation at the Swedish truck manufacturing giant Scania. Pehrsson says that electric heavy trucks can match and even exceeding diesel truck productivity. Pehrsson was involved in several major electric prime mover pilot projects in Sweden during his career with Scania and is now on a mission to apply that knowledge to the Australian road freight sector.

“Today’s demonstration shows that it’s not only possible to cut away the greenhouse gases for Multiquip in this particular operation, we also saw that we could actually reach their destination quicker than they normally do with a diesel truck.” says Pehrsson.

Muir was also impressed with the time savings.

“Timing is a huge factor for any business, particularly a just-in-time business like ours. It was very surprising for us to see just how much time he was able to save with the vehicle being able to maintain that speed over distance.” said Muir.

“I was frankly quite shocked. Constantly being able to maintain that speed is amazing.”

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