Battery-Powered Trailers Slash Diesel Costs, Aussie Firm Says
South Australian company VE Motion is building battery-powered trailers that target a 50 percent cut in diesel use. Farmers and foresters are watching, but one operator says battery range fell well short of what she was quoted.
VE Motion, a South Australian company, is building battery-powered trailers it says could cut diesel use for truck operators by 50 percent, according to co-founder Dean Panos. The trailers aim to ease fuel bills without forcing owners to replace their trucks.
Trucking firms are struggling with high fuel prices, and a growing number of transport companies have gone under as costs rose.
How the trailers work
Panos and fellow co-founder Stephen Bussenschutt designed the trailers to reduce the power a truck needs to pull them. The battery system adds muscle to the trailer itself.
"[They have] an extra 400 horsepower that can provide more than 50 per cent of the workload for the vehicle, so we're targeting a 50 per cent diesel reduction," Panos said.
The pair started in diesel power generation, then moved into solar and batteries. They saw an opening in trucking because, in Panos's words, the cost of diesel on the grid is about 10 times the cost of the energy price.
They bought an established trailer maker at Murray Bridge, which came with agricultural customers. Most inquiries so far have come from farming, Panos said, including mushroom growers, milk carters, bulk wine producers and pig farmers.
First customer wants proof
The first buyer is Andy Divall, a Goulburn livestock farmer who also runs a large civil construction business. He said his operations burn probably 120,000 litres of diesel a week, and he is "embarrassed by that".
Divall has already added electric utes, earthmoving equipment and a converted electric truck. Australian manufacturer Janus converted the 10-year-old diesel truck, which runs between Goulburn and Sydney using a battery-swapping station.
He keeps expectations modest. "I'm happy if we get a 25 per cent result," Divall said. "Fifty per cent's fairly ambitious, but I hope the guys prove me wrong."
Forestry weighs the switch
In the Green Triangle region of South Australia and Victoria, forestry is a major local employer and fuel is among its biggest costs. Adrian Flowers, whose family runs a timber harvesting and haulage business, said his company's fuel prices have more than doubled in recent years.
He is studying electric trucks through a project called "De-carbonising the Freight Task". About 90 per cent of his haulage is under 100 kilometres, he said, which makes it "the perfect application". He is also interested in the locally built trailers.
Not every trial has worked. Nearby operator Fennell Forestry converted a diesel prime mover through Janus and found the B-double truck pleasant to drive, with better pulling power.
Owner Wendy Fennell said the range disappointed. "We were quoted about 400 kilometres on a battery cycle. We consistently got in the 200 kilometres," she said.
Charging infrastructure costs and power network fees ultimately forced her to end the experiment.
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