Fortescue’s 6MW electric vehicle charger stuns the EV and mining industries

The 6 MW charger is twice as big as the 3 MW prototype that was built to charge the Roadrunner, the first iteration of its battery electric haul trucks at its giant iron ore mines, and significantly bigger than any other truck charger to date.

The 6 MW chargers will be used to charge the huge 1.9 megawatt hour batteries that drive the power systems for the massive 240 tonne battery electric haul trucks. It says it will be able to do that in just half an hour.

“Fortescue has developed the stationary fast charging solution to support the autonomous battery-electric truck,” the company said this week. “Equipped with robotic connection options, the charger can provide up to 6 MW of power and charge the current battery-electric T 264 in 30 minutes.”

And there were not many more details than that, and Fortescue declined to comment further.  The company’s newly released Climate Transition Report reveals only that it expects the new 6 MW chargers to be rolled out in 2026.

For comparison, the biggest chargers rolled out to date have been ABB’s megawatt charger, which it says  has the potential to ramp up to charging capacities of up to 3.75 megawatts at 3,000 amps.

And if Fortescue is right about the scale and speed of its haul truck charging, it begs the question of what possible role hydrogen trucks could have in such surroundings. It continues to test them, but BHP has already written off the idea.

Fortescue will bring in 360 of the T 264 battery electric haul trucks as part of that $4 billion deal with Leibherr, which is the biggest single contract that either company has signed.

It will also bring in 60 electric bulldozers that it is currently developing with Liebherr, again with propulsion and battery systems designed by Fortescue, as well as adding another 52 electric excavators to the three that are already achieving success at the company’s mines.

The package is part of Fortescue’s ambitious goal of reaching “real zero” in its terrestrial operations at its huge iron ore mines in the Pilbara. It currently burns more than a billion litres of diesel a year for its transport needs, and will also replace its gas and diesel generators with wind, solar and battery storage.

Fortescue’s leadership is also dragging the other big miners into the battery electric age. BHP and Rio Tinto are working together on their own electrification plans and have started trials of both battery electric and hydrogen trucks, as well as planning solar, wind and battery projects at those mines.

BHP, coincidentally, also announced it will be trialling energy systems made by Caterpillar that allow charging of giant haul trucks – in this case 372  tonnes – even as they move. See: BHP to trial energy system that can charge giant battery haul trucks as they work