Scania has revealed that along with Australian services provider, Regroup, it will launch the world’s first fleet of autonomous in-pit mining trucks in the West Australian Pilbara next year, with the rollout of the self driving mining truck planned at Element 25’s Butcherbird Mine.
Scania announced it will supply its first fleet of autonomous trucks to Regroup, which is described as an Australian mining services supplier and that this will build on the recent announcement of its start of sales for commercially available autonomous trucks,
The world-first fleet of 11 autonomous rigid G 560 8×4 tippers, will be put into service transporting manganese ore for Element 25 at their Butcherbird site, and it is planned to start work in late 2025 in the Pilbara region.
Scania said that Regroup and Element 25 will now work collaboratively to finalise the particulars regarding this solution, and to align with the expansion of the Butcherbird mine.
“Scania in Australia has been working closely with several partners in the local mining industry over recent years to finesse our autonomous truck programme in advance of this announcement,” said Scania Australia managing director, Manfred Streit.
“We are delighted that this historic event, the first order globally for a fleet of Scania’s new autonomous trucks has been made by a privately-owned Australian company, which will provide these trucks for use in an Australian mining environment.”
“With this fleet order, we bring to commercial reality the concept of an autonomous fleet working at scale in demanding real-world conditions. We anticipate the Regroup fleet deployment will be the first of many, as operators around the world see the safety, productivity and ease-of-use benefits of Scania’s technology,” said Scania’s head of autonomous solutions Peter Hafmar.
Regroup, which is also described as ‘a fully integrated civil, mining and bulk commodities haulage partner’, said that it sees the autonomous truck fleet as the first critical stage in its path towards a zero-tailpipe emissions mining fleet future.
“Along with Scania, we are excited to be establishing our first fleet of autonomous vehicles in the Australian mining industry. It is not lost on us that we are able to collaborate with one of our key, and long-standing partners in Element 25 as we look to roll this solution out across their site. We have always been aligned in our values in supporting industry innovation and the electrification of the global vehicle fleet. It is great that we can demonstrate this on site,” said Regroup’s managing director, Michael Still.
“Regroup has excelled at initiating and delivering sustainable and renewable practices, and these new autonomous trucks are just the first step in our transport plan. We are looking forward to adding Scania zero emission autonomous mining trucks as the next step. In addition to the autonomous trucks coming next year, we have also ordered a driver-operated battery electric Scania rigid 8×4 truck that we will look to incorporate into the Element 25 Butcherbird operation which will serve as a water cart, underlining our overall aim of decarbonising our mining activities,” Still said.
“We’re investing eight figures with Scania to establish a fully autonomous onsite mining haulage fleet. Regroup has a track record in investing in innovative fleets,” he said.
“We see the autonomous Scania fleet also reducing our diesel consumption, as we’re moving from a larger capacity fleet of 100-200 tonne vehicles to a smaller class unit, and from a decarbonisation perspective, we’re burning less fuel on site, so we’re reducing our impact on the environment to achieve the same commercial result,” he said.
“We have built a relationship with Scania over the past 18 months to reach a point where we can really partner in this groundbreaking opportunity together. It’s been good for us to have Element 25 on board, too. Our customer is heavily focused on battery technology. They are mining manganese, and this becomes a circular economy of sorts because the product being mined is a component in the batteries driving the electric vehicles,” Still added..
Regroup claims to have grown tenfold over the past four years, providing plant, people and expertise across several construction and mining sectors.
“We worked out early on that we needed to develop into a full-service offering,” Still added.
“We’ve grown quickly from 22 staff to 250. In that same time, we have spent and committed over $100 million on new assets. So, we’re very serious about fresh fleet,” he said.
“We live by the principle in our business called ‘a poor man pays twice’ so we don’t buy on the cheap. We buy new for several reasons. I think it attracts good talent and good operators and it shows the innovation that we have within our business. When new technology and opportunity comes along, we’re able to invest,” he said.
“Our aim longer term is to fully electrify the fleet.”
Regarding the new autonomous fleet, Still said there will be no reduction in his driver cohort, because the new fleet will be operating as an expansion of a current programme, so no additional drivers will be sought.
“On the one hand we will reduce our (notional) driver requirement by 21 people, due to the autonomous trucks replacing three shifts of seven drivers, so there is a saving on wages, flights, food and accommodation, but we will be creating control room jobs, which are safer environments, and eventually we anticipate they can be remote sites, such as their hometowns.
“Our existing workforce is unaffected, but it allows us as we grow not to rely on new talent into the business as much as in the past. We’ll be able to take people out of the dirtier more hazardous environment and deploy them into safer cleaner more appropriate, more attractive working environments,” he said.
“I think this has a much bigger impact on the family,” Michael Still says. “But I think the other point is, this is our road map to electrifying our fleet and providing our customers with a road map too. We will run these diesel vehicles initially with one BEV in there, but as technology develops – and we see Scania as a key partner having demonstrated capability in this area – as the larger trucks become available and become an electric option, we would look to swapping out the fleet to the fully electric fleet on site as well.
“Regroup certainly wants to be an early adopter. That’s been a part of our vision as a business, but we’ve also been watching OEMs and some aftermarket providers attempting to automate their fleet and to electrify their fleets. We always had a clear commitment within our business that the solution that we’ll ultimately pick should be backed by the OEM.
“We have seen that Scania, as a business based out of Sweden, has already been working in the Pilbara in mining on autonomous trucks for a while, getting their hands dirty in the harshest of environments, and they back their product in this application to be the first commercial operation in the world,” Still said.
“In discussions with Scania’s Head of Mining in Australia, Robert Taylor, he could see what our vision was. He could see where we’re heading, see the growth trajectory, and he knew that the Scania product was what we needed.
“We’ve certainly done our homework in terms of people that are using the Scania product. But there is a leap of faith involved with commercializing an autonomous solution from Scania for the first time in the world. With anything that you do for the first time there’s going to be a leap of faith because there’s no baseline data, but one of our values is to think big,” said Still.
“Looking at our data projections, against maybe a small site, autonomous is more expensive, but the more volume you’re required to move, the cheaper the solution becomes, because your operator numbers don’t increase.
“Yes, your trucks increase, but your operators don’t necessarily increase because you’ve got a control room with the same setup. Your setup costs are in fact locked. So, it’s then spread out over more trucks and more volume and then the trucks made complete sense.
“But even at the lower volumes, whilst it looked like on paper there was an increased cost to us providing the solution, when you consider the cost of flights, the cost of transporting people to sites, and the cost of accommodating people, almost got it to a cost neutral point, even with four trucks.
“But at 10 to 11 trucks running, there is a financial benefit to our client. And even while still a diesel truck, just in fuel economy and reduction in carbon emissions, there’s a benefit to our client,” he said.
“We’re expecting to see these new autonomous trucks arriving in the latter half of 2025. We are fortunate that within our team we have some people who have experience integrating autonomous equipment into the fleet in the Pilbara, so they know what to expect. They were involved with the early concept trials of the autonomous Scania solution in the Pilbara and so we’d be relying on those guys and the Scania team. This is really where that partnership works,” Still said.
“Regroup is a business on a rapid path to expansion, having been voted the top regional business of the year in WA,” said Robert Taylor, Scania Australia’s head of mining.
“We can see that Regroup and Element 25 will benefit from reduced operating costs using our autonomous trucks, decarbonising their operations, and transferring labour requirements from the field to remote control room locations, which are also safer working environments. So, this fleet will provide a win-win for all parties,” Taylor said.
