Fortescue diversifying its electric vehicle supply chain as Real Zero goal moves closer
Fortescue Zero may no longer be in the running to manufacture battery packs for Fortescue’s fleet of electric vehicles to run in the Pilbara of Western Australia, but it will continue to play an integral role in the provision of power systems architecture on this new crop of machines, Fortescue Metals and Operations CEO, Dino Otranto, told IM on the sidelines of Resourcing Tomorrow, in London, today.
“Our intention when we brought Williams Advanced Engineering (now called Fortescue Zero) back in 2022 was to rapidly scale up and get into manufacturing of battery packs and supporting systems in the UK and Australia,” Otranto said. “The reality is that we just can’t compete with the supply chain out of China when it comes to price and speed.
“Our focus for Fortescue Zero will now be on providing and leveraging that technical electrification expertise in mining and other verticals, plus further developing the electric motorsport business.”
In this new role, it is likely that a Fortescue Zero facility could receive the battery packs from, say, CATL or BYD, and integrate them into power systems packages that could be fitted on electric machines. The ‘IP’ Fortescue Zero will be providing is the customisation element these ‘off-the-shelf’ battery packs require, with this expertise supplied internally and to other equipment manufacturers and mining companies looking to diversify themselves from the traditional OEM space.
He clarified that Fortescue Zero is still supplying the batteries to Liebherr to integrated into its trucks, with these being a Fortescue Zero design and power system, albeit the manufacturing will be carried out by another party.
“The new setup will allow us access to the latest and broadest battery technology at the lowest possible cost, which makes strategic sense for both Fortescue as a user and Fortescue as a technology provider,” Otranto said.
When it comes to progress on site with electric vehicles, Otranto reported on the continued scale up of renewable energy generation and infrastructure in the Pilbara, the arrival of an electric-tethered Epiroc Pit Viper 271E, plus the running of “small electric ancillary vehicles” on site from the likes of XCMG.
“We also have several diesel-electric Liebherr T264 trucks now at our operations, which will be converted to battery-electric drive in the future,” he added. Fortescue has previously stated that Liebherr and XCMG will carry out phased deliveries of battery-electric trucks from 2028 to 2030.
“The reality of our Real Zero ambitions is very quickly being realised.”
The company has previously stated a plan to reduce terrestrial emissions (Scope 1 and 2) across Fortescue iron ore operations to zero by 2030.
On the light electric vehicle front, Otranto mentioned that the Pilbara operations has previously tested the Ford F150 Lightning electric truck, the Rivian R1T eLV and a prototype of the BYD Shark.
The likelihood is that the movements of all the electric vehicles Fortescue ends up using will be orchestrated by its Haulex platform, which combines autonomous haulage, fleet management and Level 9 collision avoidance. This, Fortescue says, could create the optimised autonomous and electric sites of the future.
Otranto said that both the company’s majority-owned Iron Bridge and 100%-owned Eliwana iron ore mines are using the fleet management solution within Haulex – the former being a site that is operated by contract miner Thiess and uses a mixed equipment fleet.
“What we are developing with Haulex is akin to Android,” he said. “Where the traditional OEM models lock you into Apple and iOS, we want to offer an Android-style open source platform that allows you to share data and interface with other apps in an optimal way within the ecosystem.”
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