Australian EV truck manufacturer doubles assembly capacity

Electric truck manufacturer SEA Electric has announced that it is doubling the size of its local assembly facility for zero-emission trucks in the Melbourne suburb of Dandenong.

The company says that it leads the world in terms of a comprehensive range of highly adaptable electric truck options, with its present plant expanding to now cover 8000 m² on a total site of 15,000 m², giving SEA Electric the capacity to produce eight trucks per day, or up to 2080 units per annum.

Founded in Australia in 2012, SEA Electric released its first electric commercial products in 2017, while last year it launched its new range of medium- and heavy-duty electric cab chassis models, distributed and supported by an extensive dealership network.

“Australia doesn’t need to search the world to attract EV manufacturers — SEA Electric is proud to be a global leader in commercial eMobility technology, home-grown here in Victoria,” said Tony Fairweather, SEA Electric Founder and CEO. “Since launching our new range last year, we have attracted incredible interest from a wide cross-section of leading companies and government bodies who seek to improve their environmental sustainability, despite a lack of policy and incentives to fuel growth in the sector on these shores.

“The recent change of federal government and the subsequent increase in EV activity has provided SEA Electric with renewed confidence that appropriate policy and incentives may be close. There are many examples of successful policy in EV progressive countries such as the US that we should simply emulate.

“Despite Australian passenger car production wrapping up in 2017, we still have vibrant engineering, development and manufacturing capabilities, of which we should be proud.”

SEA Electric’s existing facility has for the past 12 months utilised a 100 kW rooftop solar array, which has produced 129 MWh of energy to date, with 86 MWh being exported back to the power grid.

All told, the system has ensured that the site is approximately 60% carbon positive, in other words, it produces 60% more energy than it consumes.

As a cornerstone of the new energy ecosystem, in future, SEA Electric will utilise the batteries within vehicle-to-grid (V2G) functional trucks on-site, where the trucks could provide power grid stability by feeding energy back at times of peak demand or grid disruption.

The local range of SEA Electric badged trucks, the SEA 300 EV and the SEA 500 EV, are available in a range of models from 4.5 t GVM vehicles capable of being driven on a car licence through to 22.5 t three-axle rigid trucks.