“Powerwalls on wheels:” The plan to make electric utes in Australia

Much has been said (often at The Driven!) about a glaring gap in the burgeoning local electric vehicle market: namely, electric utes.

The segment is ripe for electrification. Bolstered by federal tax breaks for businesses, utes account for one in five car sales in Australia, but are some of the greatest contributors to carbon emissions and pollution on Australia roads.

We’re not talking lightweight traybacks either. Australians make it very clear they want something with stacks of ground clearance, the ability to pull at least two tonnes and enough grunt to get up a badly eroded and potholed hilly dirt road.

And though there are plenty of examples of these overseas – the Ford F-150 Lightning, the GM Hummer EV, the Rivian R1T and the Tesla Cybertruck (now due in 2023) none have been slated for arrival in Australia, partly because of demand overseas and partly because there’s no incentive for carmakers to bring them to Australia.

See also: Football, meat pies, efficiency standards and electric utes: Can we have it all?

One company plans to change this. Roev, one of many electric vehicle players to display at the AEVA national expo in Canberra on the weekend, says it wants to re-launch an Australian vehicle manufacturing industry in Australia by way of a locally made electric ute.

We know – it’s not the first time we’ve heard such lofty goals.

Though it’s been in the pipeline for several years, we’ve still not seen one ACE-EV Yewt roll off the factory floor for customers, and plans for an H2X Warrego hydrogen ute made in Gippsland seem to still be just that – plans.

EV Direct also has plans for a manufacturing facility in the Southern Highlands however is currently all shoulders to the grindstone getting the China-made Atto 3 to customers.

Ex-Atlassian execs turn eyes to electric vehicles

Roev founders Noah Wasmer and Paul Slade – who first met working in senior executive roles for Atlassian, the wonder-tech startup headed by billionaire entreprenuers Michael Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar – say they understand the huge hill to climb in actually kickstarting car manufacturing in Australia.

“We’ve already invested heavily in understanding the long-term business case for manufacturing at scale in Australia,” said Wasmer via a statement. “We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make this happen and drive real change in this country.”

However, the goal for now is to start converting existing utes sold in Australia, such as the Ford Ranger and the Toyota Hilux. By helping businesses and government fleets convert their existing utes, they can kill two birds (fleets and utes) with one stone, so to speak.

“The ute is the obvious choice because of the size of the market and the fact that there is no outlook at all for mainstream electric utes hitting our shores,” says Wasmer, who was head of technical teams at Atlassian from 2019-2021.

He adds that utes” are also among the worst emitters of CO2 being almost 100% diesel and with high kilometres driven due to the nature of their use.”

Additionally, by starting with fleets the company can scale quickly.

Power walls on wheels and open-source software

It’s only natural that with the tech know-how and pedigree that comes with having worked at Atlassian, Wasmer and Slade also want to use vehicle-to-grid technology combined with open-source EV software to effectively make the utes “powerwalls on wheels.”

Roev is not only talking about plugging your car in to sell power to the grid. The big picture is far more elegant than that, and in typical Atlassian fashion aims to solve the complex problems posed by transferring power from solar to car to grid and back again with software.

This would be further enabled via fleet depots.

Slade – who rose up through the ranks at Atlassian to become head engineer in various capacities over nearly 14 years, says that, “we see the future of vehicle depots as DC micro-grids, and by testing our V2G technology and EV management software, we can show that it can be done without impacting the driving performance or range requirements for electric vehicles”.

Roev is seeking fleet partners and more information can be found at its fleet program page here.