Australian Mining Electric Vehicle Company (MEVCO) is testing the Rivian R1T electric ute in Western Australia.
It says it has developed an EV “fully customised for the mining environment”.
MEVCO chief executive Matt Cahir posted on LinkedIn the first MEVCO Rivian R1T mining industry test drives in Perth, adding MEVCO will return at the end of February for test drives with the R1T, the MEVCO 4X2 and MEVCO 4X4 – “the whole fleet”.
In January last year, the company announced a partnership with SEA Electric to bring 8500 EVs (mainly Toyota HiLux and Land Cruisers with SEA Electric’s system) to the mining industry in an 88kWh battery option with 380km range or a 60kWh battery with 200km range.
Cahir has put up a variety of photos, including Rivian’s commercial electric van in MEVCO green, suggesting it will be part of the company’s “cutting-edge solutions”.
Rivian ended its exclusivity agreement with Amazon in November, enabling it to sell its electric vans to other buyers, Electrek reports.
“A month later, AT&T announced plans to add its R1 models like the R1T and R1S, and its electric commercial van to its fleet.”
Mineral Resources (MinRes) says it is the first miner in Western Australia to take delivery of Australian-engineered electric utes for its mine site operations.
MinRes intends to decarbonise its Western Australia mining operations which it says includes two of the world’s largest hard-rock lithium mines, and that it placed an order with mining industry vehicle supplier and global systems integrator MEVCO.
The utility vehicles purchased by MinRes are fitted with an 88kWh battery that provides up to 380km range and can be charged to 80% in less than an hour.
