For many, a complete lap around Australia in a truck is a daunting enough prospect. The long hours on straight roads with barely a vehicle passing or a stop in sight. Searing heat on one side of the country, and thunderstorms and rain on the other. It can be enough to make an experienced truckie shudder with nerves.
As an electric vehicle enthusiast, Jon Edwards took the challenge to the next level when he became the driver of the first electric truck to perform a complete lap around Australia.
“I’m actively putting charging technology in remote locations around Western Australia and have crowdfunded a couple in the state to connect it to the rest of Australia,” Jon told OwnerDriver.
“When the electric Hyundai Mighty truck became available on the market, I thought it would be a good opportunity to be the first to drive it fully around the country and prove it can be done.
“I wanted to prove that electric trucks and chargers can work for long haul applications. I hope it can open eyes to the fact that this technology is real and effective, and not just for rich people driving Tesla cars.”
Call it mad or inspired, the idea soon grew legs for Jon when he bought the truck and began planning his trip. Having recently been part of lobbying the WA government to install the electric highway, Jon took his electric infatuation to the next level with the Mighty lap.
To begin the intricate planning phase of the lap, Jon welcomed friend and EV enthusiast David Lloyd to use maths and spreadsheets to detail every day and hour of the trip. While the pair both knew the journey wouldn’t be an easy one, they planned out every factor that could influence the trip, from different types of chargers to headwinds out on the open highway.
“The spreadsheet David made was huge and identified where I could charge, the charging rate at those places and how long it would take,” Jon says.
“We then determined the consumption of the truck and went into detail – we didn’t want to race out onto the roads and expect to do it in a month and instead take three months. We wanted to be realistic – there are some long stretches out there where you have to be prepared, like out on the Barkley Highway or in the Northern Territory.”
As part of the planning, each day would be capped at 12 hours of charging and driving, with Jon aiming to travel roughly 500km per day. Despite the intricate preparation, Jon admits to being nervous on the eve of the voyage.
“I was a bit anxious when I took off on the trip, as a lot of people had high expectations for me to get it done,” he says.
“We also had several iterations of measuring the variables and if they changed, so this constant tweaking didn’t help the nerves.”
Travelling clockwise from WA, Jon immediately countered the biggest variable that could impact whether he would be able to complete the journey in a zero-emissions vehicle – headwinds.
“Headwinds are one of the biggest variables on consumption, much more so than load,” Jon says.
“This factor often catches a lot of people out when they begin these endeavours, as headwinds impact you while tailwinds benefit you.
“Headwinds, particularly unseasonal ones, were encountered from the start while travelling east, but we also faced them while driving west later on.”
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Luckily, Jon’s in-depth planning allowed him to get ahead of his conservative schedule, meaning he could take some days off in capital cities to soak in the places and put the Mighty to the test in inner-city conditions. Travelling through the north of Australia first, Jon was lucky to not face too many problems – only “a few glitches here or there” that were easily fixed by the tools and technology he carried with him.
On top of the spare charger for the truck battery, Jon also brought a battery to power camping gear and lights while he was parked up to avoid draining the main battery. If this didn’t work, he would wait until he reached caravan parks to connect to power and complete simple daily activities.
Another key issue that Jon was concerned about before embarking on the trip of a lifetime was the impact his mission would have on road users around him. As part of the plans to maximise battery range, he intended to drive at a maximum speed of 85kph, which he thought would be “half and half acceptable” on some roads, and completely disrespectful to heavy vehicles on other major routes.
“I thought it would annoy a lot of other truck drivers that these ‘Tonka’ trucks would go slow,” he says.
“But as it turned out, most places I had to travel slowly in were straight stretches of road, so most road trains shot by without a problem.
“I was lucky to receive no negative comments throughout the trip.”
In fact, Jon soon found his journey wasn’t just a fact-finding mission, but also an opportunity to educate other heavy vehicle operators around Australia to the possibilities that smart planning and zero-emissions models have in the trucking game.
“I had many comments from drivers at truck stops asking me how far I could go on a single charge in the Mighty and how I managed to keep it charged,” Jon says.
“I remember being at a big roadhouse that had a fast charger in Three Ways in the Northern Territory, which is roughly 20km north of Tennant Creek and along the Stuart Highway, and seeing some road train drivers.
“After plugging in and staying there the night, they came out of the roadhouse and talked my ear off about the truck, asking me about its range and the battery I had to keep it charged in remote areas. They looked at each other, shook their heads and thought it was never going to happen – it was pretty funny.”
A major finding from the expedition for Jon was that the maths didn’t lie when it counted. While driving, he had a co-driver sitting with him, navigating through unfamiliar areas and big cities while also continuing to calculate whether the truck would last to its next planned charging break. Jon only recalls one situation where he had to slow down heading into the rural Queensland town of Charters Towers because of unexpected headwinds one afternoon, but outside of that the co-driver helped Jon plan every section meticulously as they went.
“One learning from the trip was that the truck instrumentation for measuring range and charge was very basic,” Jon says.
“For those used to driving a Tesla where it tells you everything in great detail, the truck doesn’t give you as much information, so you need to work it out yourself and do the math.
“In Victoria we had to shift from one charging location to another on two occasions due to computer problems that impacted the chargers, but every other bit of charging infrastructure around the entire country worked as we wanted it to. The infrastructure may still need more work, but it’s definitely improving.”
By the time Jon took a turn down the east coast and towards home again, he realised he was ahead of schedule. This meant he could pull up for six days in Adelaide to visit his mother and help her around the house before meeting friends in Whyalla on the way through to WA.
Upon completing the lap in October and reflecting on his great voyage, Jon calculated the costs and realised he had saved a great deal using a zero-emissions truck model.
“If I’d done the lap with a diesel truck and an equivalent load then it would’ve cost me around $7,500 worth of diesel, but it only cost me $3,200 worth of charging, so there are some cost benefits to running electric models at this point in time.
“I know people won’t use this technology unless it’s commercially sensible, but once the capital costs come down, this shows the operational costs are much more affordable for small businesses.”
In total, Jon travelled 13,600kms in 26 day, using a mixture of fast chargers on the east and west coast, slow chargers in the outback rural settings and his own charger to keep the Hyundai truck model firing on all cylinders. Now, he only has a broken driver side headlight to repair courtesy of an unfortunate run-in with a kangaroo just before Streaky Bay in South Australia. He views the expedition as a massive success, and a key reason why commercial businesses should look at running small electric trucks in their operations. Jon hopes his remarkable trip is the start of the trucking industry realising the limits are endless when it comes to using new technology.
“For those businesses running in the city, not doing long hauls, these 7.3 tonne trucks are ideal for completing deliveries around town,” Jon says.
“You can arrange a battery charging system yourself at a depot, fast charge the truck from stored solar power and run it around with no fuel costs.
“The economics are there, and the costs will come down as more competition emerges, so people should take these models seriously – they’re beautiful to drive and are nice and quiet.”
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