How long does it take to charge an electric vehicle? How often do you have to do it? EV drivers will be familiar with the questions. It’s often posed by people struggling to get their minds around the transition to electric motoring.

Australia’s biggest mining group BHP is one of those. It has looked into the issue, with their Early Learner Caterpillar electric truck models in the Pilbara and concluded that to convert its fleet of giant electric haul trucks to fully electric ones is just too hard.

BHP reckons the trucks will need to be charged for up to 15 minutes eight times a day, and the time and motion experts have decided that is too much lost productivity to make the investment worthwhile, and so they have put a stop to those transition plans.

Which begs an obvious question: If it’s too hard for the world’s biggest mining company, how then can its Pilbara iron ore rival Fortescue, succeed in its ambitious goal of replacing several hundred diesel haul trucks – weighing up to 260 tonnes – with full battery electric ones by the end of the decade, when it plans to reach “real zero” and burn no gas or diesel for power or machinery.

Last week we reported Fortescue’s initial response – saying BHP was obsessed about small details and missing the bigger picture, Now we have more information about the approach that Fortescue is taking as it prepares to roll out the first of its electric fleet later this year.

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