The first battery electric Scania truck has arrived at Rio Tinto’s Paraburdoo operation in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. For the next three months, the mining company will be putting the Scania truck through its paces, testing its operation, maintenance, performance, and safety features before handing it over to the onsite team.

James Davison, General Manager – Surface Mining and Technology at Rio Tinto said in an online post: “It’s the first time an electric truck has ever been used in a Rio Tinto surface mining operation, a major step towards the potential future implementation of a smaller electric autonomous haul truck fleet, which could help to deliver significant cost savings and emissions reductions.”

He added: “This is an important milestone in electrifying and decarbonising our operations, and an example of how we’re finding better ways to usher in a new era of sustainable mining. It’s exciting to be part of the team delivering on these goals.”

Rio Tinto has already been working closely with Scania on the development of more agile autonomous haul trucks at a mine at the Channar mine in the Pilbara to pursue potential environmental and productivity benefits. Rio Tinto and Scania launched new trials on Scania’s 40 t payload autonomous mining trucks in April 2022 and quickly reached a key milestone of driverless operation in a simulated load and haul cycle environment.

The miner says Scania’s trucks have potential advantages over traditional heavy haulage trucks, both in terms of emissions and productivity. In utilising Scania’s autonomous mining trucks, energy requirements, mining footprint and infrastructure requirements can be reduced, meaning that capital and operating expenses may also be reduced at suitable sites.

Rio Tinto has also previously referred to the potential upsides of using larger fleets of smaller trucks. “Larger haul trucks, while already automated, consume more energy than current electric-vehicle power sources can generate. By exploring truck size, we want to assess how big and small trucks can both be a part of the solution to reduce our emissions in the Pilbara and find fit-for-purpose solutions in mining…smaller trucks can operate on narrower roads, allowing us to cut steeper pit walls and reduce vegetation disturbance. This reduces the amount of earth we need to move to access the ore.”