Electric truck maker Janus has debuted the first battery-powered prime mover in Australia and has plans to set up battery swap stations up and down the eastern seaboard within months.

Janus director Bevan Dooley shared a video of the company’s first road-ready prime mover to Youtube on Sunday, ahead of plans to make units available for trial by fleets in March.

Giving a loud “honk honk” as the converted Freightliner Coronado drives by – in stark contrast to its relatively silent drive down a street – the video is a first taste of the company’s plans to electrify long haul truck fleets using only batteries.

The company plans to offer new prime movers installed with its Janus Conversion Model (JCM) as well as converting existing diesel trucks for fleets that are due for an engine replacement or overhaul.

“Fleets are very eager to come on onboard – they are getting getting pressure for customers for carbon zero solutions,” general manager Lex Forsyth tells The Driven.

Notably, the company is planning to install “Change and Charge” stations at key locations on major routes to avoid lengthy recharge times. Also known as “battery swap”, this is a method also being deployed in China, and also now Norway, by EV maker Nio for its range of electric cars.

For Janus trucks, it will mean batteries can be dropped off and charged on-site, reducing downtime for drivers and lengthening the life of the battery.

“Fast-charging (semi trailers) is not viable,” he says, as generally only 60% of battery would be used to ensure the battery doesn’t degrade too quickly.

The vehicle in the video above has two 620kWh batteries on either side of the cab, meaning almost 500kWh worth of battery materials would essentially go unused most of the time.

Also, he says, “the size of the power feed to charge within an hour is just huge. We want to give the operator 100% use of the battery, and a sustainable future for the battery.”

Forsyth says depending on what the prime mover is towing, it will get 500-600 km range for a single trailer or 400-500km for a B-double.

The company is making plans to install its Change and Charge stations in Sydney, Port Macquarie, Grafton and Brisbane to begin with. It has also secured a site at Port Augusta in Adelaide, and has plans to expand down and across to Melbourne.

“When drivers take their scheduled fatigue breaks of 15-30 minutes, that’s where we are locating the Change and Charge stations,” he says.

He says that the choice to make battery-electric prime movers over hydrogen is purely numbers-based. In fact, he says that hydrogen fuel cell technology is the most expensive solution.

“Fleets are learning that hydrogen is not the answer – the numbers are not stacking up,” he says.

He gives an example of Brisbane to Sydney which is an approximately 960km-long trip. A battery electric truck will need around 1732kWh of energy to pull a B-double up the coast at a cost of around $320.

By contrast, a diesel truck needs 520 litres of fuel to do the trip which will cost about $780-790 (after the fuel rebate is applied). Hydrogen, however, would cost a mind-blowing $1450 using current US prices which equate to around $A18 a kilo (a truck would need 80 kilos to do the trip).

He points out that the “magic number” of $2 a kilo touted by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency would only be achievable if electricity cost 5c per kilowatt-hour.

“If I can buy electricity for that much I’ll put it straight into batteries,” he says. “And even if the cost of hydrogen came down to $7-8 it’s still dearer than diesel.”

“We’re not trying to bash hydrogen, it just doesn’t make sense as an energy source.”

Another advantage of using batteries – and in particular by employing a battery swap method over fast-charging – is that fleets can keep up with cell technology more easily.

Forsyth says that he believes lithium-sulphur technology will mean Janus trucks can do 1,000-1,800km in the not-too-distant future.

“As new tech comes economically technology and available, we just change the cells.”

To begin with, the battery cells will be changed manually using forklifts but the company plans to introduce robotic pallet lifters to do the job once routes have been established.

The company is also setting up approved dealership networks to support fleets in all Charge and Change locations.

Asked if he thinks Janus is limited by the same cell constraints that is holding the tesla Semi back, he says: “We can source enough cells for what we want to do right now – we just need right energy density (from a multitude of cell makers).”

He says that Janus will complete road testing by end of February and be open for fleets testing by the end of March.

Bridie Schmidt is associate editor for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018, and has a keen interest in the role that zero-emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum. Bridie also owns a Tesla Model 3 and has it available for hire on evee.com.au.

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