Electric road freight company New Energy Transport has announced plans to fast-track the roll out of 20 electric prime movers – which will ply corridors between Sydney and regional centres – after landing $5 million in funding.
NET has the first electric prime movers will operational before the end of the year, supported by six “mobile” ultra-fast charging units that will be deployed as it constructs its first electric truck charging hub in Wilton, south of Sydney, as reported by The Driven in April.
“We’ve seen a surge in demand from some of Australia’s largest transport buyers and this backing means we can meet that demand by providing reliable electric road freight in Australia before the end of the year,” company co-founder Daniel Bleakley says.
NET describes itself as Australia’s first vertically integrated electric freight platform, and its initial freight corridors will run between Sydney, Wollongong, Newcastle, Yass, and Canberra, then regional centres such as Griffith and Wagga, and with Adelaide, Melbourne, and Brisbane to be added by 2031.
Its centrepiece will be the hub at Wilton, Australia’s largest planned heavy electric trucking depot, which  was recently selected under the Federal Government’s Investor Front Door program as a project of national significance, but this won’t be completed until late 2027.
The “mobile” chargers, on the other hand, can be operational within 16 weeks.
“The modular and mobile charging units we’ve selected aren’t fixed to the ground, they sit on a frame, plug into the grid and are ready for commercial operation within weeks.
“This technological solution means the charging units can be redeployed to new locations in the future to enable NET to service new corridors including into regional and rural Australia.
“This is an additional, flexible capability that supports our plans to build Australia’s largest heavy electric trucking depot and connect the entire east coast road freight corridor in the next five years.”
Each skid will have a 640 kW charger, supported by a 125 kW battery, to support power deliver in grid demand. They will initially all be deployed at Wilton, delivering combined maximum output of up to 2 MW, although some may be deployed at other sites.
“The construction and delivery of electric trucks won’t be the constraint on the market, it’s the construction of charging facilities,” says Bleakley, who is also calling for charging hubs to be given priority in the grid connections process.
The supplier of the electric prime movers has not been identified, although the company has been trialling Windrose electric trucks (and its map provided to media cites Windrose as a supplier), and a Volvo prime mover is to be unveiled in coming weeks for its first customer.
Bleakley told The Driven that corporate interest in electric prime movers, like the passenger car market, is accelerating rapidly as logistics companies analyse the state of the global oil market, and its implications for the supply of diesel in Australia.
“We believe that the crisis hasn’t actually started yet…. and we believe that in the next six months Australia will face a serious diesel crisis, which will develop into a road freight crisis, and so we are accelerating our plans to respond to that,” he says.
The 20 prime mover trucks will deliver more than 10,000 kms of freight per day, saving 2.5 million litres of diesel a year.
The $5 million equity raising was backed by institutional investors Jekara Group, leading family offices and high-net-worth investors, and was facilitated by net zero advisory firm Pollination. A further fund raising is expected.
“We’ve proven electric trucks deliver significant productivity and economic benefits, recently completing Australia’s first end-to-end electric road freight delivery from Sydney to Canberra on a single charge, faster and at lower cost than pre-war diesel,” says Fredrik Pehrsson, the other co-CEO, New Energy Transport.
“With further diesel price shocks anticipated, the business case for electric heavy road freight has never been clearer. Stable, predictable and lower freight costs are a genuine competitive advantage, and the companies moving first in Australia are the ones that will secure that advantage.
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Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of The Driven, and also edits and founded the Renew Economy and One Step Off The Grid web sites. He has been a journalist for nearly 40 years, is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review, and owns a Tesla Model 3.