Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

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Regrettably the big Australian miners (Rio Tinto, BHP, Fortescue, etc) want electric to work and are vocal about their efforts in that direction but the four or five stand alone fully electric trucks (Rio) trotted out for pressers aren't a good reflection of either the fleet majority or even of the current new acquisitions.

No longer online (just) the recent ABC "Media Watch -s2026e22- Monday 2026-07-06 BHP Battery Bunkum" episode had a bit to say about the curtain (media releases) not matching the carpet (purchasing).

That aside .. electric motors are as big a deal in mining as they've always been -

* bench face excavators are fully electric and drag power lines behind them as they load out trucks,

* most hundred+ tonne haul pak trucks are electrically driven .. (using power from onboard diesel generators),

* underground likes to use semi autonomous leading edge tools (up hole drilling for blasting, face shaving and loadout, etc) on powerlines, so you do see more usage there than in open CUT (I know, open cast was likely a typo)

etc.

Even super pro renewable Fortescue's Twiggy Forrest is having setbacks, although he's always been three steps forward, two and half back for much of his career, so things are still progressing.

I generally wouldn't trust big mining corporations to do the right thing but that's some extremely negative framing.

For standard EV cars in Australia only 20% of new sales are EV, the fleet is maybe 3%. But everyone sane seems to agree that is the direction of travel.

Mentioning (without proper quantification) that the EV mining trucks aren't the majority of the fleet when cars are at only 3% is shockingly misleading.

Err, I'm not sure I follow.

Australian mining moves > billion tonne per annum in W.Australia alone and that mass is blasted, excavated, moved by trucks, and then often by train, run through processing plants, stockpiled, excavated again (for loading to ship), and then shipped.

When looking at the energy costs of mining ... cars (in mining context) don't particularly factor in save as a rounding error.

The media hype being discussed is Rio / BHP / etc. big noting a couple of trucks and trains with no actual signs of further commitment being made.

Sans a plan to convert entire fleets at a site, then other sites, it's a real criticism to point out that there's little movement at a scale that matters.

Now, at least. To be revisited in 5 years, say.

I'm commenting on your first paragraph in which EVs not being the majority of a mining truck fleet is taken as failure or hype.

While for example Norway only has 30% fleet EVs despite already hitting near 100% sales.

It's setting up an unreasonable target for comparison to make progress look bad when even having a single battery powered truck would have been seen as amazing progress less than a decade ago.

Rio started touting "amazing progress" a decade ago.

Today, a couple of battery powered trucks is where they are at.

Private car owners generally don't have full stack control to custom order from manufacturers bypassing dealers, to build roads and energy supplies, to own lifetime maintenance in workshops, etc. in the same manner that Rio and BHP do.

How are the couple of battery powered haul paks charged? My guess would be from the same fossil fuel powered on site power stations the excavators are and not (yet) from custom built on site solar farms with over night battery storage.

Rio / BHP each have many mine sites - making a single mine site fully renewable (or at least 50%) renewable would be a good sign of progress. That's still not a thing, or even close, so far.

Perhaps you see this as "amazing progress", others have had greater expectations <shrug>.

It feels like you're moving the goalposts to wanting EV trucks, charged at remote sites with a 100% clean minigrid just so you can be disappointed.

That's a great goal, but every step along the way to it is also meaningful progress.

They currently have sites with 100% renewable power from buying PPAs for new solar farms, they have absolutely giant EV trucks, they have mini grids with solar and wind and batteries offseting diesel usage.

A lot of this is done for fundamental economic reasons and those economics continue to get better. They've committed Billions to it.

Ah well. I've been duped by the hype. I'm glad there is at least some viable electrification going on.

The hype was genuine enthusiasm, the reality is somewhat Sisyphean :(

eg: Fortescue- Feb 2026

  Fortescue launched two battery-electric locomotives this week, rounding out its fleet of 70 diesel-powered machines hauling precious iron-ore from pit to port.

  The pair [ of battery powered locomotives ] will save the company 1 million litres of diesel each year, still just a fraction of the 80 million litres the company consumes annually.

and

  ... the company's stalled "Infinity Train" concept.

  Andrew Forrest had previously touted an in-house electric rail model, developed with Australian engineering firm Downer Group, that generated all the power it needed using the uphill-downhill dynamics of the Pilbara ranges. 

  The project was canned, however, in September, axing more than 100 staff.

~ https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-15/fortescue-battery-ele...

Definitely going for it, still a ways to go.

Fortescue's hydrogen generation pilot plants went well and have closed up shop - the economics are "close" but not "feasible" in the current climate - still too many subsidies for Chevron and LNG and too few for novel gas startups that need a full stack to function (generation + storage + usage).

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