442,000 pound EV

The battery pack is 1.4mWh

 

"What's the 5 year capex vs a diesel haul truck?" - every mine manager.

"how frequent and how long is the down time per week?" - every mine manager's immediate follow-up question.

 

30 minute charging? I don't believe it

 

I actually read the regenerative braking is nuts on some of the test vehicles. Being able to regen on the downhill was super effective. Didn't watch this vid, but have seen others. Hopefully one never goes up in flames, haha.

 

How does it do in -30 temperatures for weeks in a row?

- Canadian Mine Manager

 

Every mine would need their own power plant to charge the fleet.

 

Which part do you not believe? The batteries charging or the supply power?

30min just means they are charging at 2c. This can already be done on todays batteries but it does reduce the life. If they were actually going to do this, they would need a ~2.8MW supply.

 

This isn't some startup trying to scam their way into getting contracts. This is Fortescue. I'm pretty sure they know what they're doing.

 

I can tell you as an insider. Every major mining, manufacturing, and chemical company has one or two token projects to demonstrate carbon neutrality, and one or two more to demonstrate circular economy. None of them are money makers, very few are not pure horseshit when you really dig into the science. But when it looks good on your linkedin feed... Shiny assets rolling by an avenue of manicured trees to public domain soundtrack, and stock footage of actors in shiny hard hats and hi-vis vests with the fold crease still in them, it makes the investors happy.

And everyone wants happy investors.

 

It wouldn't have a problem. The power required to charge in general seems more of a concern than the cold weather capability. The issue with EVs in cold weather is increased power consumption, that's it. It takes more electricity to warm the battery pack and more electricity to provide heat to the cabin. Once the battery is warm the energy use drops to near normal levels and remains that way. The operators might even prefer it as they'd have nearly instant heat in the cab rather than waiting for an engine to warm up to provide waste heat. I'd guess at those temps the rigs have auxiliary diesel cab heaters though like we have on a lot of heavy equipment in Alaska which negates that advantage.

 

I don't think this is a pet project for them. As of June 2023, they have spent $414,000,000 on this. Most of the money has gone to batteries.

This isn't mining but if we look at Pepsi, in their 4th quarter earnings report from last year, they disclosed that they are on track to save $150,000,000 annually by switching to EVs. This is due to fuel and maintenance.

Like you said, it looks nice on their LinkedIn. What I think their really after is reduced fuel costs.