VTE June/July 2022

VEHICLE TECHNOLOGY ENGINEER

Australia’s car manufacturing is evolving not dissolving The Making of a Warrior: Bernie Quinn explains the evolution of Premcar SAE-A 2022 AGM: A look back and forward Warfare: War in Ukraine has repercussions for auto & aerospace Motorhaus Garage: An expanded view for this local manufacturer

June/July 2022 Issue 32 Representing mobility engineers since 1927 www.saea.com.au

VTE | Contents

Contents

June/July 2022 Vipac Tour

7

The Annual General Meeting of the SAE-A

16

Australia’s car manufacturing is evolving not dissolving

19

Motorhaus Garage adds to its repertoire

24

Warfare in automotive

26

Special Features 16

AGM - The Annual General Meeting of the SAE-A

19

Premcar - Australia’s car manufacturing is evolving not dissolving

22

Noi Kotev - Starting a career by going the extra mile

24

Motorhaus Garage - Motorhaus Garage adds to its repertoire

26

Warfare in automotive - The Ukraine affect

VTE News 8

General News

10

Automotive News

12

Truck & Bus News

14

Defence & Aero News

15

Overseas News

Society News 4

Notes from the Chair - Welcome from Adrian Feeney

5

SAE-A News

Technical Feature 27

Technical – Society of Automotive Engineers Australasia Zero Emissions Vehicle Project

About the cover Premcar’s Nissan Warrior: Bernie Quinn talks about the company’s successes

About the SAE-A SAE-A was founded in 1927 to address the need for further education for all facets surrounding Automotive Engineering, and now encompasses all mobility engineering industries in the Australasian region. The SAE-A is a non-profit organisation that works to serve the needs of its members and to promote the relevance of mobility related technologies to governments, industry and the community in general.

The editor, publisher, printer, the Society of Automotive Engineers – Australasia (SAE-A) and their employees, directors, servants, agents and associated or related entities (Publishing Entities) are not responsible for the accuracy or correctness of the text, pictures or other material comprising the contributions and advertisements contained in this publication or for the consequences of any use made of the products, services and other information referred to in this publication. The Publishing Entities expressly disclaim all liability of whatsoever nature for any consequences arising from the use or reliance on material contained in this publication whether caused to a reader of this publication or otherwise. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the Publishing Entities. The responsibility for the accuracy or correctness of information and other material is that of the individual contributors and the Publishing Entities do not accept responsibility for the accuracy or correctness of information or other material supplied by others. To the extent permissible by law, the Publishing Entities exclude all liability pursuant to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) or other applicable laws arising from statute or common law.

Readers should make their own inquiries prior to the use of, or reliance on, any information or other material contained in this publication, and where necessary seek professional advice. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without the written permission of SAE-A is strictly prohibited.

www.saea.com.au

VTE | 3

Introduction | Secretary, CEO and Chairman Society of Automotive Engineers

VTE Published By: Society of Automotive Engineers - Australasia ABN:

95 004 248 604

Address: PO Box 103, Werribee Vic 3030 Phone: 0403 267 166 Email: info@sae-a.com.au Web: www.saea.com.au

Adrian Feeney

Membership & Subscriptions

Secretary, Chair and CEO Society of Automotive Engineers – Australasia

Rose De Amicis Email: rose@sae-a.com.au Events Cara Coughey Email: events@sae-a.com.au

Board of Directors: Chairman & CEO Adrian Feeney Board Mohammad Fard Technical Director Sam Lagozzino Membershp & Events Bernie Rolfe FISIT & SAE Liaison Greg Shoemark Gov’t & Industry Liaison James Soo Autonomous/EV Vehicles Richard Taube Board Director Michael Waghorne Finances Gary White Board Director

Magazine Production: Editor Mandy Parry-Jones Trading Terms Media Email: mandypj@optusnet.com.au Mobile: 0409 806 986 Design Brigid Fraser Email: fraseram@optusnet.com.au Mobile: 0413 009 122 Advertising Jill Johnson Jill Johnson Media Email: jj@jilljohnsonmedia.com.au Mobile: 0409 217 624

VTE Industry Partner: Excellerate Australia

4 | June/July 2022

Welcome to the June/July edition of VTE, we have lots to talk about.

We are now halfway through the year, and I can report that so much has happened in a short time and thankfully our events have been virtually Covid free. I announced in the previous edition that our focus will be on face-to-face activities and that is exactly what we have achieved to date.

Most of our events have been face-to-face with appropriate use of Zoom limited to events that are more targeted to our Australia-wide members. I expect that this trend will continue for the rest of the year.

As this edition goes to press, we will have conducted our Annual General Meeting and networking event that, based on early registrations, will be well attended and I suggest well presented by our events committee; Luke Callaway and Sam Lagozzino.

The most significant announcement is the makeup of the new board. Regrettably we lost three very good board members due to work commitments but have found worthy replacements. I wish to take this opportunity to thank Noelle Parlier, Luke Callaway and David Young who have stood down and welcome James Soo, Richard Taube and Gary White. We still have one vacancy on the board and will continue to seek the appropriate candidate based on our needs.

Mohammad Fard and his Technical Committee have done an outstanding job to organise the

APAC 21 Conference, scheduled for October 3, 4 and 5 this year, with two keynote speakers announced and more than 70 papers submitted.

I encourage every member (and non-members too) to register and attend this event, it’s the biggest thing we have done for many years and it’s going to be absolutely critical for our industry to get up to speed with the autonomous technology – that is the subject of our conference. There is a good mix of overseas and local experts presenting together with a number of panel sessions so that everyone’s needs can be satisfied.

Formula SAE is back after a 2-year hiatus and already we have more than 30 registrations with 80 percent being Electric Vehicles (EVs). There will also be, for the first time, a Driverless Class dynamic demonstration, with the intention to make this an optional class for our competition in the future.

Very soon we will be reaching out to our network to register as a volunteer, for those who have supported this event in the past, you know just how important this event is to the students involved. If you haven’t volunteered before, I recommend you put your hand up and become involved, it’s an amazing experience and the students are so appreciative of what you will be doing for them. An email advising how to register on-line will be issued very soon.

Thank you to all our loyal members, the future is bright

SAE | News

Remi Bastien keynote speaker at APAC Former Renault autonomous vehicle engineering chief Remi Bastien will be the first keynote speaker at APAC21, the 21st biennial Asia Pacific Automotive Engineering Conference Mr Bastien will explore the true usefulness of automated driving in his keynote address to APAC21 in Melbourne in October.

Harmonising the Future of Mobility, and he promises to explore the true real-world usefulness of automated driving.

Recently retired as Vice President, Automobile Prospective for Groupe Renault, Mr Bastien was Global Director for Autonomous Driving Prospective at the Renault/Nissan Alliance in 2015-16.

“Not only has he spent 39 years with Groupe Renault, but he is Delegate General and Treasurer of FISITA, the international federation of mobility engineering associations.

SAE-A Chairman and CEO Adrian Feeney said Mr Bastien would bring forward a unique perspective as an engineer who had mapped out the autonomous plans of a global car company.

“He is also chairman of Next Move, a French cluster dedicated to mobility, and a member of the Shift Project, a French think tank for the sustainable economy.”

“We are delighted to have Remi as our keynote as only a handful of people have played such a pivotal role in defining the future of autonomous vehicles,” Mr Feeney said. “Remi delivers a truly international perspective to our theme of

Mr Bastien’s keynote will address the proposition that automated driving must be more than just a technical challenge to achieve its essential value to sustainable mobility. Drawing on examples in the US and Europe, he says its potential will be achieved when combined with ride sharing

and multimodal applications to take advantage of infrastructure.

He says this will require complementary initiatives by car makers, telecom, infrastructure and tech companies, as the challenge is bigger than any single actor can handle. APAC21 will run from 3-5 October 2022 at Hyatt Place Essendon Fields.

Online registration and full details are at www.autonomous2022.com

Zero Emissions Vehicle Project report

New Members

The Zero Emissions Vehicle Project or ZEV (formerly known as the Police Car Project) is a project run by the Society of Automotive Engineers, Australasia.

The SAE-A would like to welcome the following new members:

The purpose of the report is to summarise the research done by research interns Noi Kotev and Evan Favos, who conducted a feasibility study to understand the market in Australia for ZEVs and the current procurement habits of government agencies across Australia.

Research was conducted in two main states, with Noi Kotev located in Victoria, and Evan Favos in New South Wales. This report includes findings from the research conducted by the research interns, along with analysis of reports and data given to help paint a picture of government fleet purchasing across the country.

Using the information collected, trends are analysed and from these certain predictions can be made as to the feasibility of producing electric utilitarian vehicles here in Australia for Australian government fleets. A range

Noi Kotev

of government services are considered, the police, ambulance, fire rescue and local councils.

Through discussions with government figures in their respective states, analysis into certain state’s electric vehicle policies and the drive to zero emission vehicles is also included as context for the report.

The full report is included in this issue of VTE starting on page 27.

Student Members Mohammed Al Nasseri Adam Bowler Thomas Curkowskyj Neshas Khandagale Rados Nikacevic Jonty Pretorius Joseph Zanzoul Individual Members Malcolm Dix Graham Keidge Manfred Lottig Justin Perret Corporate Members Segula Technologies LEAP Australia More information at www.saea.com.au/membership

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SAE | News

Garry Rogers Motorsport workshop tour rescheduled to August This plant tour has been rescheduled to run on 17 August from 6.30pm to 8.00pm at Dandenong in Melbourne.

Garry Rogers Motosport is an Australian motor racing team competing in the S5000 and Australian TCR championships.

The team is owned by retired racing driver Garry Rogers who began the team to further his own racing efforts.

Based in Melbourne, originally out of a Nissan dealership owned by Rogers, the team has competed in a variety of touring car series in Australia ranging from relatively modest Nissan production cars to Chevrolet NASCARs to building the GT specification Holden Monaro 427C.

Vipac Tour On 19 May a group of 16 members of SAE-A attended the tour of Vipac’s facilities in Port Melbourne Luke Callaway and Adrian Feeney represented the SAE-A board.

James Payne, senior engineer at Vipac hosted the event which proved to be very successful.

Vipac was founded in 1973 and is a familyowned Australian company employing around 150 staff members many of whom are PhD-qualified.

The team won the Bathurst 1000 in 2000 and also won both the Bathurst 24 Hour races, which were held in 2002 and 2003. In 2013 the team celebrated its 50th year in racing since Rogers made his debut.

Rogers has been famed as a talent spotter with a number of drivers finding their feet within GRM including Steven Richards, Jason

The company is a multi-disciplinary consultancy specialising in mechancial and systems engineering, dynamics, modelling, instrumentation, data acquistion, analysis and testing.

A range of different industries in Australia as well as overseas use their services including defence, transport, construction, automotive and environmental for data acquisition and testing of acoustics, vibration, wind, fluid mechanics, stress-strain, thermodynamics and aerodynamics testing.

Bargwanna, Garth Tander, Jamie Whincup, Lee Holdsworth and Scott McLaughlin. Many of these drivers became future champions and Bathurst 1000 winners.

The event is free to SAE-A members, non members $50 or students $30.

Contact events@sae-a.com.au or visit www.saea.com.au

Overseas the company has assisted with projects such as the Burj Khalifa in Dubai which is a landmark skyscraper for the United Arab Emirates. It has a total height of 829.8m – just over half a mile, and a roof height of 828m. The Burj Khalifa has been the tallest structure and building in the world since supplanting Taipei 101, the previous holder of that status.

Vipac has a presence in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide visit www.vipac.com.au for more detailed information.

VTE | 7

News | General

DECO Testing granted ISO 17025 accreditation DECO Australia’s new independent testing body, DECO Testing Pty Ltd, has been granted ISO 17025 accreditation by the National Association of Testing Authorities, Australia (NATA).

As Australia’s leading national accreditation body, NATA is recognised by government to assess organisations against a number of international standards for laboratories, inspection bodies, proficiency testing scheme providers and reference material producers.

This significant ISO 17025 accreditation means that DECO Testing’s newly refurbished laboratory has scope to offer five material performance and corrosion tests, with results accepted globally. These tests include: •

Cross Hatch Adhesion to ISO 2409

•

Wet Adhesion to Qualicoat 2.4.2

16 champions to elevate women in STEM

•

Machu Test to Qualicoat 2.11

•

Neutral Salt Spray to ISO 9227

•

Acetic Salt Spray to ISO 9227

“This respected NATA accreditation is a significant achievement for DECO Testing.

It really highlights DECO’s commitment and continued dedication to quality and performance and will now also give us the ability to offer accredited testing services industry wide.” said DECO Australia General Manager, Richard Hamber.

DECO Testing conducts these third-party accredited tests across DECO Australia’s wide

range of products and finishes, and offers these globally recognised testing services to the wider industry with NATA accredited test certificates provided on completion.

International Women in Engineering Day International Women in Engineering Day began in the UK in 2014 as a national campaign from the Women’s Engineering Society. Since then, INWED has grown enormously, receiving UNESCO patronage in 2016 and going truly global the following year.

The Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE) has announced the appointment of 16 STEM champions from across the breadth of industry and academia to lead an Advisory Group for the $41.2 million Elevate: Boosting Women in STEM program.

The program is funded by the Australian Government.

The transformational program will award up to 500 undergraduate and postgraduate scholarships over seven years to women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, in partnership with the Australian Government, the higher education and research sector and industry.

The Elevate Advisory Group will be co-chaired by non-executive director, engineering leader and former President of the World Federation of Engineering Organisations (WFEO) Dr Marlene Kanga AO FTSE, and Dr Adi Patterson FTSE, an international leader in nuclear science and technology, and a Champion of Change. The Advisory Group will champion the program, secure sector wide partnerships, and guide strategy and implementation of the program.

“I am proud to lead this incredible project which we hope will shift the dial in the level of participation of women in STEM. This is vitally important to secure Australia’s future as a technologically advanced nation. The Advisory Group comprises 16 of Australia’s most experienced STEM ambassadors who will collectively transform our assumptions about who can work in STEM,” Dr Kanga said.

8 | June/July 2022

National Women in Engineering Day was launched for the first time in the UK on 23 June 2014 by the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) to celebrate its 95th anniversary.

In 2017, National Women in Engineering Day became international for the first time due to the interest and enthusiasm developed by the international audience and participants in the previous years. International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) was born to enable the celebration of women in engineering to become global.

Figures as of June 2021 show that 16.5 percent of engineers are women, in Australia the figure is lower at 12 percent. INWED gives women engineers around the world a profile when they are still hugely under-represented in their professions. As the only platform of its

kind, it plays a vital role in encouraging more young women and girls to take up engineering careers.

This International Women in Engineering Day, Swinburne University of Technology paid tribute to women who have followed their passions in engineering, overcoming the many barriers’ women face in forging successful careers in the field by highlighting Victoria Zinnecker an Aerostructure Innovation Research (AIR) Hub Research Fellow, Associate Professor Mahnaz Shafiei who is pioneering work on next generation miniaturised, low-power gas sensors and at Swinburne’s Factory of the Future Shanti Krishnan who is helping industries innovate and embrace technology through her passion for making engineering interesting.

General | News

Top tips for women to forge a career in engineering Being fearless has helped Dr Lorena Caires Moreira forge a career in the maledominated world of engineering – now the Coventry University researcher offers her five top tips for future female engineers.

Dr Moreira has been working with engineering and technology for a decade and is a research fellow at the UK’s Coventry University’s Institute for Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering (AME), where she helps transform engineering problems into innovation opportunities by leveraging the capabilities of emerging technologies.

These are her top tips to help others follow in her footsteps and be a catalyst for change:

Thales Australia new CEO Jeff Connolly Thales Australia and New Zealand announced the appointment of Jeff Connolly as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) following the decision by current CEO Chris Jenkins to retire after 14 years in the role.

Mr Connolly will take up the role on 1 September 2022, with Mr Jenkins agreeing to continue to serve Thales and its customers as a non-executive director after a period of leave.

towards your colleagues. Help others and you can help create a supportive and collaborative work environment.

Emotional intelligence can be an undervalued skill and it can mean different things depending on the circumstances.

1. Be fearless. No woman should be afraid of building a career in engineering due to the ratio of men to women, use it as an extra encouragement to be a trailblazer and create change for the future. Always speak with confidence, clarity and certainty. Give yourself enough time to be prepared and never be afraid of asking questions and to be heard.

4. Collaborative communication. Be curious about people at work in a professional way; ask about their professional experiences, projects and areas of expertise to find out how they, eventually, could support you.

At the same time, let people know how you can help by sharing your experiences, expertise and areas of interest.

2. Have fun. There has never been a better time to join a career path in engineering for women, given the technology advancements and the need for new innovative thinking. The fact that engineering remains a male dominant sector poses extra challenges that require me to stretch my comfort zone in all directions.

5. Know that you belong. To best thrive in this industry, you need to feel equal, know your worth and find a sense of belonging.

We are seeing various initiatives towards more equal, diverse and inclusive (EDI) workplaces and working patterns being introduced that focus on addressing the gender gaps in engineering and technology.

3. Make kindness your superpower. Empathy and kindness are powerful skills that can be used to show respect and appreciation

My advice is to join societies and networks when you are studying at university and beyond.

Australian-born Mr Connolly will join Thales from multinational technology and engineering company Siemens AG, where he has been Executive Chairman and CEO of Siemens Australia and New Zealand for the past 10 years. In a 30-year career at Siemens, Mr Connolly has held senior executive roles throughout Australia, Europe and Asia.

“Among other notable achievements, Jeff established and chaired the Prime Minister’s Industry 4.0 Taskforce, now known as the AiGroup Industry 4.0 Forum, and he remains on the Executive Council. More recently, Jeff chaired the Federal Government’s Research Commercialisation Taskforce, the recommendations of which led to the $2.2 billion University Research Commercialisation Action Plan to drive industry and university innovation and collaboration,” Thales Australia and New Zealand Chair, Belinda Hutchinson, said.

Mr Connolly said: “I am excited by the opportunity to lead one of Australia’s most innovative and trusted companies at a time when demand for its mission-critical services has never been more acute. I look forward to continuing to build on Thales’ well-earned reputation for innovation and world-class support for its defence and commercial customers in Australia, throughout the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.”

RMIT develops a retread for our roads RMIT University engineers collaborated with Tyre Stewardship Australia (TSA) to reveal a bitumen blend that is both UV-resistant and withstands traffic loads, with the potential to save governments millions on road maintenance annually.

Unlike much outdoor infrastructure, roads are not designed with any sun protection, making them prone to cracking. Australian states and territories spent nearly $2.9 billion on road maintenance in 2019–2020, according to the National Transport Commission.

This new invention provides a promising sustainable solution to Australia’s used-tyre crisis. Used tyres in Australia have been subject to an export ban since December 2020, which means new methods for recycling and reprocessing them locally is increasingly important.

The new study led by Associate Professor Filippo Giustozzi provides a sustainable solution to UV protection for roads, with results published in the Journal of Cleaner Production. www.saea.com.au

“We found that the ageing trend is actually slowed down when you add crumb rubber, which is recycled from scrap tyres, into the top layer of a road,” Giustozzi said.

“This acts so effectively as a sunscreen for roads that it actually makes the surface last twice as long as regular bitumen.

“We knew that UV would be a factor in road degradation, but not by what degree or how to protect against it, as nobody has really been looking at this aspect.”

RMIT is one of the few universities in Australia to have a UV machine for asphalt studies, it simulates weather-related ageing.

After a month and a half of continuous exposure in the UV machine, equivalent to about a year of Melbourne’s UV radiation, they

measured the changes in bitumen’s chemical and mechanical properties.

Mr Giustozzi said bitumen mixed with the high concentration of crumb rubber from recycled tyres showed 50% less UV damage compared with regular bitumen.

“You don’t want something that is UV resistant but not truck resistant,” he said. “We found adding between 18% and 22% of crumb rubber generates an ideal balance in terms of improving rut and fatigue resistance to traffic loads, while resisting UV ageing.”

VTE | 9

News | Auto

Toyota commercial hydrogen facility employs Emerson technology Global software and technology company Emerson and Toyota Australia have collaborated to transform part of Toyota Australia’s operations into a commercialgrade hydrogen production, storage and refueling plant.

The project, supported by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), adopts Emerson’s automation expertise to provide the control system that helps Toyota Australia demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of manufacturing hydrogen fuels, including the use of renewable solar energy.

For the Toyota Australia Hydrogen Centre, Emerson’s advanced DeltaV distributed control system gathers data from the plant’s complex equipment, making it easier to monitor production and storage of hydrogen gas and document and validate the sustainability of operations.

“By incorporating a digital automation foundation to eliminate data silos, Toyota Australia can not only significantly reduce costs, but also gain greater visibility into system performance, making it easier

to maintain and report sustainability performance and increase productivity,” said Mark Bulanda, executive president of Emerson’s Automation Solutions business.

Auto aftermarket expo returns to Melbourne The Australian Auto Aftermarket Expo was held across three days 7 – 9 April, thousands of trade visitors travelled from across Australia and New Zealand to attend.

For many, it was the first chance to connect and network in person in nearly three years.

And for the first time, Expo-Saturday saw the public join trade visitors to experience the best of Australia’s $25 billion aftermarket industry.

With the theme ‘The Future Is Here’, the Expo’s features were designed around the most comprehensive seminar program in the Expo’s history.

Sessions focused on the most important industry topics including mandatory data sharing, the skills shortage and electric vehicles The all-new Workshop of the Future Pavilion held daily sessions to help fast-track the automotive industry’s understanding of and transition to, servicing and repairing the future generation of vehicles, covering the ICE and EV car parc.

More than 270 of the industry’s leading brands exhibited at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre, showcasing the latest vehicle repair and servicing equipment, parts, tools and accessories, new technology and trends.

10 | June/July 2022

Auto | News

Briefs

Bosch acquires Australian MoTeC Group Bosch has acquired the Melbourne based MoTeC Group, a company that offers a wide range of motorsports technology for the customer motorsport market.

The company specialises in the development, manufacture, and distribution of motorsport technology for teams in numerous racing series and is well established in this market.

MoTeC will become an integral part of Bosch Motorsport, a business unit of Bosch Engineering GmbH, a 100 percent Bosch subsidiary based in Abstatt, Germany.

As an engineering service provider, Bosch Engineering offers customized development and consulting services in the automotive and motorsport sectors.

With its wide range of motorsports technology, MoTeC’s portfolio includes vehicle and engine control units, displays, data loggers and onboard power supply control units for conventional as well as electrified racing series.

In addition, Bosch Motorsport is expanding its sales network and market presence primarily in the Asia-Pacific region, USA and the UK. “With the MoTeC Group’s many years of experience and comprehensive expertise, as well as its worldwide dealer network, we are strengthening our position in motorsports and ideally complementing our product portfolio,” says Dr. Klaus Boettcher, Vice President Bosch Motorsport.

The company serves customers in Australia, Asia-Pacific, Europe, USA and Japan through a global network of around 250 dealers.

The MoTeC Group employs 54 people worldwide between its headquarters and a sales and technical customer service office in Banbury (UK). The MoTeC Group’s business operations will continue as a separate legal entity, under its own brand.

With the acquisition of the MoTeC Group, Bosch Motorsport is extending its product portfolio and distribution to serve additional racing series as well as the racer market in the future.

The company will maintain its approach to distribution through dealers across the world, and also its wholly owned subsidiary in the UK, and their third-part distributor in the US.

Cupra comes to Australia Australian production of Spain’s Cupra battery electric cars will start in November with an on sale date as early as 2023 “Last year in Munich I expressed my determination to get the CUPRA Born to Australia as soon as possible,” Cupra CEO and president Wayne Griffiths said.

three Cupra Borns on your streets running tens of thousands of kilometres of tests, accruing valuable data that is being assessed in Barcelona right now.”

“I can tell you this morning that Cupra’s first fully electric model and European Car of the Year finalist, will go into production for Australia in the last quarter of this year and will start deliveries early in 2023.

Cupra begins online sales shortly with an initial range comprising the Formentor crossover, Ateca SUV and Leon hatchback.

The Formentor and Leon line-ups each include a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), the first affordable European cars of this type to be offered in this country.”

“Already a sales success in Europe, the Cupra Born is a car that in its every aspect embodies the visual and dynamic aesthetic that sets our brand apart.

“As you know, since January we have had

Director of CUPRA Australia Ben Wilks said that some 6500 expressions of public interest have been received by the brand to date.

EV sales reach record numbers Electric vehicle (EV) sales have reached record numbers in recent years, with annual sales projected to increase ten-fold in the next 15 years, especially in China and Europe, due to favourable policies and auto manufacturer commitments, according to GlobalData.

Eighteen countries have set goals to completely end sales of gasoline and diesel passenger vehicles, nearly half of which are for 2030. In addition, China’s target is that 25 percent of all vehicle sales be electric by 2025, India’s is for 30 percent of passenger vehicles by 2030, and the US aims for 50 percent of all vehicle sales by 2030.

The oil and gas sector companies are diversifying their business to adapt to the energy transition including Shell, TotalEnergies, and Mitsui who are developing EV charging, battery manufacturing, and other EV value chain capabilities through acquisitions and partnerships.

Smart trial for EV charging Electric vehicle drivers in Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT are participating in a smart charger trial looking at how home fast charging technology can potentially reduce their energy costs and manage the additional demands on the electricity grid during peak times. Five electricity network businesses – Jemena, AusNet, United Energy, TasNetworks and EVOEnergy, together with charging infrastructure company JET Charge – are partnering in the 12-month EV Grid Trial, co-funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).

Victorian grants for business charging stations Victorian businesses can apply for a share of $1.5 million in grants to install electric vehicle charging stations, helping the transition to using zero emissions vehicles. The state government said businesses can save up to $500 per month per car in their fleet, saying the turn-over of fleets will flow-on to the second-hand EV market, in turn making them more affordable.

Bridging the gap between thermofluid science and battery electrochemistry Imperial College London and Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE) are working on a project to bridge the gap between thermofluid science and battery electrochemistry; developing a first-of-akind multiphase multiphysics model of battery failure via thermal runaway (a self-sustaining cascade of exothermic reactions that produce large volumes of gas).

The model will consider gas dynamics and its interactions with electrochemical and thermal behaviours, with the goal of advancing the understanding of initiation and propagation of the thermal runaway processes and accelerate the design of countermeasures.

Applying the multiphase multiphysics modelling toolsets will enable the design of safer battery packs with fewer iterations and physical tests; saving time, costs and materials.

www.saea.com.au

VTE | 11

News | Truck & Bus

Approval for autonomous electric truck to operate on road

The Wrightbus for Australia

Freight technology company Einride announced that it has received approval from the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to operate its Autonomous Electric Transport (AET) vehicles on public roads.

With this approval, Einride will conduct a public road pilot to support operational flows for customer GE Appliances, a Haier company, showcasing the Einride Pod’s purpose-built functionality for future commercialisation.

The autonomous and electric Einride Pod’s design does not leave room for a driver on board and is instead remotely monitored by a Remote Pod Operator, marking this pilot as an industry first for this new type of vehicle.

The Einride Pod will operate on public roads with mixed traffic while executing real life workflows.

This will include the movement of goods and coordinating with teams at various warehouses for loading and unloading.

Australia’s largest bus body builder Volgren has extended its zero-emission capabilities by partnering with leading European hydrogen bus manufacturer, Wrightbus to develop and deploy Hydrogen powered fuel cell buses for the Australian market.

“Wrightbus builds bodies for their products in the UK and Europe. In fact, they use similar body technology to Volgren, namely bolted extruded aluminium profiles. This shared expertise and understanding is one of the many aspects of the partnership that we think will make it a success.”

The partnership announcement follows Volgren’s successful grant from the Victorian Government’s Renewable Hydrogen Commercialisation Pathways Fund.

This is the first time Wrightbus has exported its powertrain technology to a bus body manufacturer, the first time it has entered the Australian market as a business, and the hydrogen buses will be the first of their kind to be built in Australia so this is a significant deal for everyone involved.

Yuri Tessari, Volgren’s Chief Commercial Officer, said the partnership with Wrightbus would bring the world’s leading hydrogen chassis technology to Australia.

“We believe that Hydrogen has an important place in Australia and Wrightbus is one of the most important global players in hydrogen buses. We are confident the partnership will help speed up the deployment of hydrogen buses in Australia.

The first Volgren-Wrightbuses are expected to be ready in the first few months of 2023.

The buses will be the first hydrogen buses in Australia to be built by an Australian manufacturer, and the first to be powered using European chassis technology.

Next Gen Trams for Victoria Alstom has signed a framework contract with Department of Transport Victoria, for the provision of 100 Flexity low-floor Next Generation Trams (NGTs) for the largest urban tram network in the world.

The contract includes supply of rolling stock and 15-year maintenance making this the biggest tram contract in Australia and in the Southern hemisphere.

A Remote Pod Operator will be monitoring the vehicle at all times – a first of its kind role that Einride sees critical in safely scaling autonomous vehicles by keeping humans in the loop and creating jobs to fulfill a future way of shipping.

“This is a type of vehicle that has never before been seen on US. roads and marks a major milestone as a turning point for the future of the freight industry,” said Robert Falck, CEO and Founder at Einride.

“We know the autonomous and electric technology of our pod will not only revolutionise transportation but also create thousands of jobs and help America stay competitive.”

12 | June/July 2022

Delivery of the Flexity 2 light rail vehicles is scheduled to begin in 2025. Introduction of the low-floor NGT fleet will enable gradual retirement of further high-floor trams from the Melbourne network, ensuring compliance with disability standards for accessible transport (DSAPT) requirements and provide a modern, inclusive, safe and reliable transport network for all passengers.

The new fleet will further support the increase in network capacity requirements to meet the projected population growth.

The contract includes 65 percent local content with the NGTs being manufactured at Alstom’s Dandenong facility in Victoria. Additionally, the maintenance contract includes 85 percent

local content. The contract will provide longterm stability to the local railway industry and supply chains in Victoria.

Truck & Bus | News

Volgren to deliver 10 new electric buses Gold Coast bus users will soon be enjoying greener public transport as local bus manufacturer Volgren continues construction of 10 new Kinetic electric buses.

Delivered by Translink, Volgren and Kinetic’s local operator Surfside Buslines, the new buses are expected to begin services on the Gold Coast in September and could each save as much as 1,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases over their lifespan.

“Volgren`s strategy is to have standardised production and quality systems across all of our manufacturing facilities; the same applies to different types of technologies and business partners’ products,” Yuri Tessari Chief Commercial Officer said.

“In the last 12 months we’ve concentrated on transitioning our Eagle Farm facility so it has

the capacity and scale to build on multiple chassis technologies, including zero-emission vehicles.

“These first 10 units for the Gold Coast, which will be finalised by August, represent our first locally built BEBs in Queensland and we’re incredibly proud to be working alongside valued partners, Translink and Kinetic.”

Mr Tessari said building electric buses locally is not only an important part of achieving netzero emissions, but it also supports local jobs, expands Queensland’s skilled workforce and strengthens local supply chains.

Kinetic also opened Australia’s first 100 percent electric bus depot at Currumbin Waters in April.

Brad May takes over as chief engineer at PACCAR

Fossil-free steel for trucks

Paccar Australia has appointed Brad May as chief engineer, replacing Noelle Parlier.

Volvo introduces fossil-free steel in its trucks.

Ms Parlier was a board member for the SAE-A and is returning to the US. After a transition period she will take up the position of director of product planning for Kenworth in Seattle.

The steel is produced by the Swedish steel company SSAB and the heavy-duty electric Volvo trucks will be the first to include it.

The steel from SSAB is produced using a completely new technology, based on hydrogen.

Mr May, who has been with PACCAR for almost 30 years, is currently director of sales and marketing.

He joined PACCAR as a graduate engineer in 1993 and has held the sales and marketing position since taking over that role from current managing director Andrew Hadjikakou in 2016.

His extensive product knowledge and experience at PACCAR also includes his positions as national sales manager of Kenworth, product development manager and aftersales manager.

As chief engineer, he will now be responsible for planning and managing PACCAR Australia’s engineering, after sales and product development activities.

Podcasts on emerging possibilities from Volvo With growing demand for information on emerging transport technologies Volvo Group Australia has launched its own podcast series to help inform and engage anyone interested in the why, what and where of our mobility future. www.saea.com.au

During his time in the current role, Mr May oversaw the introduction of the wide-cab Kenworth T610 and T410 models and last year’s release of the Kenworth Legend SAR Anniversary Edition.

The result is a much lower climate impact than conventionally produced steel. Small scale introduction of the steel in Volvo’s heavy electric trucks will begin in the third quarter of 2022.

Ms Parlier has been in the chief engineer position for almost four years. She previously held engineer and project management roles for four years with Kenworth in Washington, including assistant chief engineer.

Titled Emerging Possibilities the podcast features guest industry experts and stakeholders talking about electro mobility, autonomy, sustainability and even alternate fuels.

The podcast are free and available at: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ emerging-possibilities-powered-by-volvogroupaustralia/id1625009805 https://podcasts.google.com/search/ Emerging%20Possibilities https://open.spotify.com/ show/72nqLVCLnEc5yp7ny2Jo ND?si=16b8d51b1c834a9c&nd=1

The first steel produced with hydrogen will be used in the truck’s frame rails, the backbone of the truck upon which all other main components are mounted. As the availability of fossil-free steel increases, it will also be introduced in other parts of the truck.

Today, around 30 percent of the materials in a new Volvo truck come from recycled materials. And up to 90 percent of the truck can be recycled at the end of its life.

VTE | 13

News | Defence & Aero

ARRW tested at hypersonic speeds

Airbus High Voltage battery technology Airbus successfully performed the EcoPulse wind tunnel testing evaluating the performance characteristics of the propeller and the cooling process of the six ‘distributed’ electric propulsion units.

The US Air Force and Lockheed Martin successfully conducted a hypersonicboosted flight test of the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) from the service’s B- 52H Stratofortress.

The successful flight demonstrates the weapon’s ability to reach and withstand operational hypersonic speeds, collect crucial data for use in further flight tests, and validate safe separation from the aircraft to deliver the glide body and warhead to designated targets from significant standoff distances.

In 2022, the assembly of the demonstrator – a light aircraft platform supplied by Daher – is well underway, paving the way for its first test flight later this year.

Additional booster and all-up-round test flights will continue throughout 2022, before reaching Early Operational Capability (EOC) in 2023.

Hypersonic technology has continued to present several complex engineering challenges.

Going Mach 5, sometimes even faster, generates extreme levels of heat, driving the need for innovative materials, sensors and electronics to withstand such speeds throughout its journey.

In addition to heat, these systems must be able to maintain consistent communication connections, as well as considerable intelligence to perform precise manoeuvrability techniques to overcome a wide range of advanced defence systems and extreme contested environments.

Now the focus is on another key enabler being finalised for the EcoPulse demonstrator: the high-voltage Lithium-Ion main battery system developed by Airbus Defence and Space in Toulouse.

While not taking centre-stage visually, this new battery is nevertheless a very significant innovation which is central to the electrification demonstration with EcoPulse, especially as it is pushing the boundaries for high voltage batteries to be used in an aircraft.

The battery itself is approximately 2.3m long by 75cm wide and 20cm deep. It is mounted under the fuselage and integrated with a reinforced aerodynamic fairing.

The battery is one of the two electric sources on the demonstrator, the other being an “e-Auxiliary power Unit” (e-APU) provided by Safran.

The result of such incremental advances is this latest high-voltage Lithium-Ion battery. The unit, as designed for EcoPulse, weighs around

350kg, is able to achieve 800 Volts DC and can deliver up to 350 kilowatts of power.

Not only is this power level sufficient for driving EcoPulse’s six electric propulsors, depending on the test conditions, but it also happens to be similar to what would be needed for an airliner’s non-propulsive secondary systems.

The design features several thousand Lithium-Ion cells, incorporating various safety measures to prevent thermal runaway – such as connecting each cell with wire bonding. Another innovative part is the active cooling system which ensures the optimum temperature for normal operation.

The battery’s high-voltage capability when applied in this context is unique since it is not available today either in aerospace or automotive industries. Notably, the heavier batteries which are used today on aircraft are typically quite low voltage – 28Vdc – and their low energy density means that they are mainly used to start the APU and for emergencies.

As for the automotive industry, while there are indeed batteries currently used to power electric cars, these have been too bulky and heavy for aerospace use.

iLAuNCH for University of Southern Queensland The University of Southern Queensland was a successful recipient under the Australian Government’s $362 million Trailblazer Universities initiative, giving the greenlight to the University of Southern Queensland-led ‘Innovative Launch, Automation, Novel Materials, Communications and Hypersonics (iLAuNCH) Hub’.

University of Southern Queensland’s Institute for Advanced Engineering and Space Sciences Executive Director Professor Peter Schubel said the hub would support industry to address sovereign space manufacturing. “iLaunch will operate as a national space commercialisation Hub with three nodes – the University of Southern Queensland, ANU in the Australian Capital Territory, and UniSA in South Australia,” he said.

14 | June/July 2022

“Our industry partners have identified $3.65 billion in economic benefits associated with the core iLaunch commercialisation projects, which will accelerate Australian IP to market, and the development of a Space Engineering Degree that will create a pipeline of skilled, job ready engineers into this exciting highvalue, high-growth sector.

Overseas | News

Forward Vision from Mercedes-Benz The VISION EQXX from Mercedes-Benz has taken to the roads of Europe and demonstrated its outstanding range and efficiency.

Travelling from Sindelfingen across the Swiss Alps and Northern Italy, to its destination of Cassis on the Côte d’Azur, it covered more than 1,000 km in everyday traffic, on a single battery charge.

The journey was undertaken at regular road speeds, including prolonged fast-lane cruising at up to 140 km/h on the German autobahn and near the speed limit elsewhere.

The battery’s state of charge on arrival was around 15 percent, amounting to a remaining range of around 140 kilometres, and the average consumption was a record-breaking low of 8.7 kWh per 100 kilometres.

This new blueprint for automotive engineering has delivered a new benchmark for electric vehicle efficiency and range, and the technology in the VISION EQXX will be deployed in upcoming series-production Mercedes vehicles.

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Important facts at a glance • Mission Accomplished: more than 1,000 km with a single battery charge in real everyday traffic allows for relaxed long-distance journeys.

Energy Wizard: efficiency-enhancing measures lead to an outstandingly low consumption of 8.7 kWh per 100 km.

• Aero Champ: outstanding work in aerodynamics and exterior design enables a benchmark drag coefficient of 0.17, which has a particularly positive effect on fuel consumption at high speeds on the motorway.

• Rolling Efficiency: tyres with a significantly lower rolling resistance than the class A

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required by the EU tyre label and improved aerodynamic geometry, combined with lightweight magnesium wheels, provide more range.

Electric Drive: the radically new drive concept developed by Mercedes-Benz achieves a benchmark efficiency of 95 percent from battery to wheels.

Passive Cooling: passive drivetrain cooling via a cooling plate in the underbody.

Bionic Engineering: advanced digital tools enable innovative lightweight designs that increase efficiency and range.

Solar Power: ultra-thin roof panels feed the battery system and provide up to 25 km of additional range.

Software Driven: software-driven approach is the key to success in achieving efficiency targets and a fast development process, including a sophisticated battery management system.

Global Responsible Leadership: with the VISION EQXX, Mercedes-Benz is stepping up the pace to “Lead in Electric” and “Lead in Car Software” and to set standards for sustainable mobility.

Prodrive’s home racing simulator Prodrive has created a new concept in home racing simulators; one that will set new standards in design and which is as much a piece of art as it is technically advanced.

The striking styling has been created by CALLUM headed by renowned automotive designer, Ian Callum, and uses a mixture of natural materials and carbon composites to create a piece of designer furniture that would take pride of place in any home or venue.

The simulator is the idea of Prodrive chairman, David Richards.

“Most racing simulators on the market today are very functional but not particularly attractive. What I wanted was something that was more like a piece of modern art; something you would be proud to have on display in your home like a grand piano or sculpture, indeed something that would not www.saea.com.au

look out of place in a gallery of contemporary art,” he said.

Last year, Mr Richards approached CALLUM, who were closely involved in the Prodrive Dakar project, to create some concepts.

“Designing the simulator was a great opportunity to create something technically stimulating as well as visually abstract,” Mr Callum said.

The first Prodrive motorsport simulators will be manufactured at the company’s headquarters in Banbury, UK and will be available in the Summer.

what3words for Jaguar navigation Jaguar Land Rover is offering customers accurate and precise navigation even in the most remote locations, by becoming the first automotive manufacturer to integrate what3words global location technology into vehicles already on the road through a software-over-the-air (SOTA) update. what3words has divided the globe into a grid of 3m x 3m squares and given each one a unique combination of three words: a what3words address.

Through the ‘always-on’ technology, which works without the need for mobile connectivity, new and existing customers will be able to navigate to any precise location in the world using just three words.

Once updated, the system allows customers to input what3words addresses directly into the navigation bar on the Pivi Pro Infotainment system. The integration has been delivered by HERE Technologies.

What makes this system so different is its ability to direct you not only to a location within a few metres but to locations with no street addresses. As an example, stadiums and industrial parks are usually assigned a single address and yet have multiple entrances and car parks, while some pop-up venues may have no address at all. You can even be directed within metres to a location in outback Australia.

Subaru has also integrated this technology into its Outback models with additional vehicles to also have the technology. what3words can be downloaded and used as an app on smart phones or visit https:// what3words.com/about for a rundown on what this new app can offer.

VTE | 15

Feature | SAE AGM

The Annual General Meeting of the SAE-A Moving with the times was made just that bit easier with Covid – it meant that everyone in business learned to Zoom hence, it was no surprise that even though the SAE-A AGM for 2022 could be held in person, as it was, it was also relayed via Zoom.

CEO and chairman Adrian Feeney opened the AGM which despite being available on Zoom had an array of young engineering students as well as SAE-A members.

This year the event was held on Tuesday 28 June at an edgy venue called The Third Day in North Melbourne under dimmed lights and with a display of vehicles on site including Formula SAE cars from Monash and RMIT, plus a virtual reality display from Swinburne, an autonomous car from Monash, a Nissan Warrior from Premcar and a V8 SuperCar. By way of introduction to the event Mr Feeney said that the SAE-A’s vision was to foster a thriving mobility engineering industry in Australia, and where once we had five manufacturers in Australia and a vibrant array of opportunities for engineers, we had to move with the times but that did not mean that there were no longer opportunities for engineers.

Indeed, the next speaker, Bernie Quinn of Premcar proved that opportunities do exist and there is a thriving, though smaller auto industry in Australia.

Mr Feeney described the changes within the SAE-A thanking those board members who had left – Noelle Parlier, David Young and Luke Callaway for their hard work, and welcoming new board members James Soo and Richard Taube. One vacancy remains on the board and will be filled in due course.

“We’re looking toward specific skills rather than just numbers to fulfill the positions and the jobs to be done,” Mr Feeney said. “I’d like to just talk about myself for a minute, which I don’t like to do normally, but I’ve been in this job for a while and there will be a motion coming out later … basically it’s time for me to move on.

“I intend to stay on for this year as the chairman and CEO … but then we need to start looking for a new chairman, and look to how we are going to run the business going forward. We honestly can’t afford a CEO, but there’s other ways of doing it.”

Mr Feeney explained that there were a number of projects important to the SAE-A that were underway, especially APAC21 and December’s Formula SAE event at Winton Raceway. These would benefit from his completing a fourth term as CEO and chairman. The motion was put to a vote and Mr Feeney will continue for another year.

Greg Shoemark and Michael Waghorne completed their 3-year terms, and both were eligible to stand for re-election for an additional 3-year term. Both accepted to continue. A new nomination was received from Gary White and all were duly elected.

16 | June/July 2022

SAE AGM | Feature

During 2021 the focus of the SAE-A was on more strategic delivery of services with some minor changes including the website redesign through the use of the new Member Jungle platform.

The 2021 year was a particularly challenging year for the Society. Although Covid -19 impacted on all the events planned in 2021, it also provided opportunities for changes to the way programs were run, especially the use of online media, none more so than for Formula SAE-A. 2022 Events Held to Date • Sutton Tools Tour – 17 March • Motec Webinar – 30 March • FSAE Virtual Careers Expo – 31 March • VIPAC Tour – 19 May • Industry Networking Event – 28 June, post AGM

The Board took full advantage to limit its exposure to potential losses by restructuring its calendar of events. This restructuring showed the Society has a strong commitment to its members, staff, and programs. Despite these challenges, the financial result was a positive outcome for the Society.

Cost restructuring has been a major change to the Society and will continue for the calendar year 2022. The results have paid off in savings while improving member benefits.

The APAC 21 Technical Committee has continued its work to prepare for this significant event scheduled for early October, all members are encouraged to attend.

The Board has continued with KE Creative to manage all events. The Formula SAE 2022 event will return to its normal format and the events calendar for 2022 has been developed with a focus on face-to-face events.

As far as the APAC21 conference is concerned, so far 73 papers have been registered with a sponsor confirmed and more pending. Delegates have started to register, with Remi Bastien and Majid Sarvi confirmed as first keynote speakers, session chairs have been identified, three panel sessions confirmed and a draft program developed.

Mr Feeney then turned to what was initially referred to within the SAE-A as the Police Car Project and now the Zero Emissions Vehicle.

As this project developed, it became clear that the original objectives to manufacture a vehicle from the ground up here in Australia could not be met however, by changing the focus to a Zero Emissions Vehicle and engaging two very well credentialled interns in Noi Kotev and Evan Favos the SAE-A was able to provide potential manufacturers or remanufacturers a clearer picture of the

Events Planned/Under Consideration • Networking Breakfasts/Dinners • State Run Networking Events Under Consideration • LEAP Training – 26, 28 July & 2, 4 August (10am - 3pm) • Garry Rogers Motorsports Facility Tour – 17 August • Linfox Tour of World Class Proving Ground – 12 September • Women in Industry Webinar – 29 September • PACCAR Site Tour – October • 2022 APAC21 Conference – 3 - 5 October • Crash Course Investigation, Dr Shane Richardson – 14 - 18 November • FSAE-A 2022, Winton – 8-11 December www.saea.com.au

Adrian Feeney and Laurie Geyer VTE | 17

Feature | SAE AGM

potential market for a family of commercial ZEV emergency vehicles.

“We didn’t know the market and what they (Koi and Evan) managed to do was an extremely good, detailed investigation on what the potential market was for this vehicle, which started off as a police vehicle and we turned it into a zero emission vehicle. That was actually what the market wanted,” Mr Feeney explained. “These two students did great job, and now we have the report.”

The SAE-A is currently discussing the potential for such a vehicle to be manufactured here in Australia. Although the ambitious initial objectives will not be met, the secondary objective of starting the conversation was indeed a great success and opened many doors to SAE-A. Future announcements are pending.

In 2023 there will be a new requirement for engineers to be registered and to maintain their registration, this will come into

effect in December 2023. Thanks to the excellent work of intern Joseph Zanzoul, the SAE-A is very close to being approved by the Victorian Government to become an approved assessor, thus providing significant benefits to members. Details of how this will be managed, and the staffing levels required are currently being determined.

Finally, to end the formal proceedings Mr Feeney on behalf of the Board of Directors made a presentation to Laurie Geyer in recognition of his services to the automotive industry, the Society awarded its highest accolade of Honorary Membership.

This was actually done on 11 June 2021, but Victoria was in lockdown and the award could not be formally presented.

Mr Geyer has made a significant contribution, both to the engineering community and specifically to SAE-A. He has had a distinguished career in his role as Senior Quality Control Manager with Toyota Australia. He has supported and mentored engineering teams through various projects and his achievements are also acknowledged for his involvement in representing the Society on various Standards Australia technical committees over many years.

“The award will be treasured. Like a lot of years, I’ve spent the last 50 years in the automotive industry in some shape or form.

The greatest part of it for me was being in charge of quality control for Toyota and actually taking our cars, our Australian manufactured and design cars, to the middle east and some other countries,” Mr Geyer said.

“When we first got there … what a lot of people think of as the middle east sand well over there, they still thought kangaroos run down the street in Australia and our cars were judged against that.

“Our biggest response was the fact we could respond very quickly, and we did a good job at it in the end. I think if anybody went to Dubai a few years back and looked at the thousand yellow taxis, we built them in Australia. So, a big part of my job has been really … to be an advocate for Australian manufacturing.”

18 | June/July 2022

SAE AGM | Feature

Australia’s car manufacturing is evolving not dissolving When the media announced that the auto industry in Australia was dead, Premcar didn’t get the memo

Premcar is the go-to partner for car manufacturers (OEs) who want to add excitement to their mainstream offerings, so much so, that OEs are proud to partner with Premcar, such is its reputation with consumers.

“We take all of our knowledge, our experience and probably most importantly our passion and we apply that to our customers’ vehicles,” explained Bernie Quinn, Engineering Director Premcar speaking at SAE-A’s Annual General Meeting.

“Our customers are OE, we call them OEMs: that’s Ford, Nissan, GM, a lot of others, in particular Nissan. That’s one of our products over there, the white (Nissan) Warrior. We take our passion and our knowledge, and we apply it to those vehicles to make it more relevant, more appealing to customers in the Australian market.”

Premcar started in 1996 as Tickford Vehicle Engineering, set up to facilitate development of niche vehicles for Ford because Ford was building 100,000 Falcons at their factory in Broadmeadows and they didn’t have the capacity to do niche engineering such as police cars, LPG conversions or sports models.

This continued through to 2002 when the company changed its name to Prodrive after it was purchased by Prodrive in the UK. At that stage the company also started a joint venture in Australia with Ford called Ford Performance

Bernie Quinn

Vehicles. The engineering team delivered vehicle development programs as a “turn-key” solution.

Under Prodrive, the company also held the exclusive contract for the build of highperformance conversions of existing Toyota vehicles sold under the TRD brand and met all of Toyota’s quality standards.

But then the big shift happened in the Australian car marketplace Australia’s car mainstays: the Falcon, the Commodore and in general large sedans lost popularity with SUVs and dual cabs taking over.

So, as Mr Quinn said, the business model no longer made sense and it was offered up for sale in 2012. Mr Quinn and fellow director Jim Jovanovski bought the business, which was then quite small and the two have developed it into a much larger and better business than it has ever been.

Now the company is responsible for providing a One Stop Shop solution for Nissan, for vehicles such as the Navara N-Trek Warrior.

The content of the program includes: • Design • Product Engineering • Program Management • Prototype vehicle build • Certification and Homologation • Production management • Purchasing and Procurement • Materials Planning and Logistics • Secondary Vehicle Manufacturing • Quality.

www.saea.com.au

VTE | 19

Feature | SAE AGM

Following on from the success of the N-Trek Warrior, Premcar has recently completed the design and development of the PRO4X Warrior, revealed in June 2021. The design and development also followed Premcar’s One Stop Shop formula.

“We’ve got a big facility out in Epping in Victoria. Epping is about 20ks … north, it’s got a manufacturing team. It’s got an engineering team. It’s got a back-office staff team. It’s got a prototype workshop. It’s got a manufacturing facility out the back and it’s got secondary manufacturing authority,” Mr Quinn said.

“We can basically put a VIN plate on a car, which says it’s legal; homologated to drive on Australian roads.

“We’re also part of an international group, which the Australian business is 75 percent owned in Australia, 25 percent owned by a

German company called RLE International, a product development business with a global reach and 22 hundred employees in that organization, and offices all around the world.

“So, it gives us access to not only staff and capabilities across the globe in all sorts of areas, but also access to projects as well.

We do projects internationally as well as in Australia.”

The Nissan Warrior developed by Premcar in Australia, is being looked at as an export opportunity. This is the benchmark for Nissan globally. It is the toughest Navara in the world; it was developed in Australia and manufactured in Premcar’s facility.

In the next financial year Mr Quinn said the company would produce more than 3000 vehicles and after that more like seven or 8,000 cars. Ford, when it died, did about 20,000.

“The way we do it is we’ve got a really robust engineering process,” Mr Quinn said.

The company can develop a PRO4X Warrior in about 12 months. And over the years it has developed vehicles such as the Ford XR8 Sprint.

“I think that again sold out in about a day, made a massive profit for Ford. This one is interesting this is a Ford Bronco, it’s not even sold in Australia,” said Mr Quinn pointing to a photo..

“We did the 35-inch wheel entire program.

When we did the program for Ford, it was based on a take up, it’s an option to have a 35 inch tyre on that car and it comes with a different suspension package, obviously a different wheel and a different tyre.

Adiran Feeney, Bernie Quinn and Sam Lagozzino

20 | June/July 2022

“When the business case was drawn up by Ford ... it was profitable at a four percent take up … the actual take-up for that option on Ford

SAE AGM | Feature

Bronco in the US – to keep in mind that it is about 250,000 vehicles – for Bronco is 47 percent. They make more money on this option than they do on the vehicle. It just shows you what niche vehicle engineering can do.”

Niche engineering is not the only thing Premcar does, over the Covid years in Australia the company worked with an international team to take a concept for a Tesla competitor car to fruition completing all the chassis design, front and rear subframes, the wheel ends, suspension links, springs, dampers, brakes, and more.

Premcar worked with a team in Germany doing the vehicle structure and several other teams around the world. Mr Quinn says that work enabled Premcar to gain valuable knowledge in engineering electric cars.

“We need to keep in touch with what’s happening in the future. We need to understand customers. We need to understand what the technology trends are otherwise we are going to become irrelevant.

“I’m kidding myself if I think I’m going to be doing dual cab utes in 2032 – it won’t be happening. Whatever we do it’s going to have a fuel cell, it’s going to be EV or hydrogen or whatever,” said Mr Quinn.

Car manufacturing has not died in Australia, automotive engineering has not died but like all things in this world, it has evolved and will continue to evolve. There are still plenty of opportunities for automotive engineers. www.saea.com.au

VTE | 21

Feature | Interview

Starting a career by going the extra mile Going from study to an exciting career is what every engineering student hopes for, and Noi Kotev did just that

Noi was one of the SAE-A’s interns during 2021 and as many of the association’s engineers will be aware she reported on the viability of Australian engineered zero emission vehicles. As a mechanical engineering student, she saw the potential of gaining practical experience and contacts for her career move in 2022.

Noi is also in the powertrain team working on Swinburne University’s Formula SAE-A car – she threw herself wholeheartedly into chasing prospects for the right job. That came about through the SAE-A’s online careers expo during which she caught the attention of PACCAR engineer Claudia Bautista, Engineering Operations Manager.

“I made some really good contacts, but on top of that, the content itself is things that I love. I’m passionate about automotive, obviously. I think zero emissions is, of course, the future,” Noi explained.

Not long after, she found herself working full-time as an engineer in the chassis layout team for Kenworth trucks at PACCAR Australia.

“So, looking into the future of that and working with the Society of Automotive Engineers and being able to communicate with engineers, which I never would have the chance to do [without work experience] was just awesome and amazing.”

Building on the work done by program director Murray Longe, the SAE-A recruited research interns Noi and Evan Favos – both active Formula SAE-A team members – to do required market research. Noi was then in her penultimate year of Mechanical Engineering (Honours) at Swinburne University of Technology, and passionate about sustainable engineering and the environment.

Noi worked with steering group member Jim Griffin, of Multimatic Engineering Australia, to implement a market study proposal he defined for the project.

She investigated the market’s needs and aspirations to determine the basic soundness of the SAE-A ZEV project to potential supporters and investors.

Realising that it is important to grab all possible opportunities with both hands – 22 | June/July 2022

“I was really lucky that they had an opening in the Kenworth chassis layout team,” said Noi. Explaining why she has fallen in love with the job, she said that not one truck is identical to another, and so there’s an engineering drawing for every single one.

And the drawing is essentially what the customer has requested for different components, but she then must take into account what the truck is going to be doing.

Because if a truck is going to be carrying fuel or if it’s going to be carrying cattle, it’s going to have different requirements. So, then it’s designed according to that.

Enthusiasm is not something that Noi is short on, and her willingness to do extra work has paid dividends and has fed her appetite in discovering and doing more in engineering. Her current passion is working with CAD, virtual reality and augmented reality and she does that in her personal life as well as her work life, saying there could be nothing more rewarding.

“I’ll go and learn all different CAD software.

It’s just because I love it. And when I come to work, I design a new truck layout,” she said. “If it’s a fuel carrier, maybe a heavy

Interview | Feature

rigid, then we’ll design the truck to have the components that it requires as well as the components that the customer has specified.

“And then we combine all of that and we figure out how things are going to be laid out. So that’s where the term layout comes from. We follow the engineering rules and then allocate things accordingly on the chassis.”

RS!

NTEE U L O V R O F G CALLIN

Adapting to both working full time and working with trucks has been a lot easier than Noi expected.

“I didn’t think it would be as easy as it was to adapt to it,” she said. “I think what made it easier was that it’s CAD and that I’m familiar with CAD. It wasn’t so much that I had to know trucks beforehand, it was more applying the engineering rules that were set out.

“If you come from Swinburne, PACCAR is a really good space because everyone knows that you’re straight out of uni and they are all kind, and you are in a team with Sanat (Dunung). He’s amazing. He’s very understanding.”

Sanat is the engineering operations layouts department supervisor at PACCAR with whom Noi works and she is also very pleased to be among other ex-Swinburne engineering students who work at PACCAR.

FORMULA 2022

8-11 DECEMBER 2022 WINTON MOTOR RACEWAY RURAL CITY OF BENALLA, VICTORIA

WE INVITE YOU TO JOIN US FOR THE 23RD YEAR OF FORMULA SAE-A IN THE CITY OF BENALLA Formula SAE-A is Australasia’s premier design, construction, and on-track student event highlighting the performance of electric and internal combustion cars from leading university teams around the world.

This year some teams will take the opportunity to demonstrate their autonomous vehicles.

Being a volunteer offers you a great opportunity to experience all the action with 800+ students; see the latest global automotive technologies at play and share your passion and experience in the industry with the next generation.

Noi Kotev and Sanat Dunung.

After work Noi is completing her final year at Swinburne and is still involved with the Formula SAE car that the university is developing. For the first time this year Swinburne will be competing with two cars one of which is an autonomous vehicle which Noi is very excited about as she has been working with the emerging use of virtual reality for the project.

“I’m looking if we can use augmented reality and virtual reality as an engineering tool to see if we can have a look at the vehicles through virtual reality headset or through an augmented reality app on an iPad,” she said.

“So, when I had to do my honours thesis, I thought that’s something I really want to be researching. Even working full time, I get to do my uni work afterwards and on weekends. I love working here, what I love most is the actual designing it’s something that I really wanted; I wanted a job designing and in automotive, the fact that I have that is just incredible.”

As for the future Noi sees so many opportunities within the company and hopes to possibly move into the powertrain design area but as she says that’s a long way down the track.

For now, she is learning and developing her skills in the industry of which she has always dreamed of becoming an integral part. www.saea.com.au

Join in the excitement with industry leaders, motoring enthusiasts and students at this epic event for one, two or all three days!

Volunteers are supplied with on-the-job training, commemorative attire and meals. Plus take satisfaction in knowing that your involvement is helping advance the development of our future engineers, as well as supporting the local region and SAE-A. To learn more visit: www.saea.com.au/formula-sae-a Complete the online registration form: www.saea.com.au/volunteer-formulasaea For more information contact: Isaac Baldry - ph: +61 475 517 244 e: isaac.j.baldry@gmail.com SAE-A Office Phone: ph: +61 403 267 166

COME JOIN THE ACTION! VTE | 23

Feature | Motorhaus Garage

Motorhaus Garage adds to its repertoire

Covid put the kibosh on many things, what immediately springs to mind is our ability to interact but in the realms of industry it put a lot of things on hold. In September 2020 we spoke with Rob Clunes about the aims for his company Motorhaus Garage and its project to build a bespoke car body that could be used on existing car chassis to personalise a car.

No longer is the company focusing solely on fibreglass bodies, bigger things are on the drawing board.

“We would build a chassis. We’ve noticed that there are a couple of companies out there that actually supply chassis to be welded by the user. We’re not confident with that. I’m not saying no one is capable, but our name’s on the line,” he said.

“COVID kind of put everything on hold and added a bit difficulty chasing investors because no one really wanted to spend any money, not knowing what was happening around the world,” Mr Clunes explained, now he is back on-track searching out investments for the project, which has developed substantially since 2020.

“I’m actually dealing with an Australian investor at the moment. And we’re looking at a few things, a few options right now to get rolling. But I’m after more investment for the project.”

What was once a project to make a new car body has evolved and while that concept is still being worked upon the company is also looking at building a full ground-up body, which includes a chassis design.

“We would rather have our professional welders do it so we can make sure it meets standards and then it goes out stamped.”

The chassis that Motorhaus Garage is looking to build is a space frame chassis where the customer can then bring in parts from a donor car such as the front end, the diff and running gear.

One that is definitely on their radar is based on Falcon running gear and one on the Commodore both with six-cylinder and eight-cylinder engine options. And Motorhaus Garage is looking to Australian manufacturers for things such as taillights, headlights, windscreens and other possible parts.

“I’ve been looking around the world and there are a few people that do those, but they’re all based on TransAms or Corvettes from America. So, I’m saying let’s build one here in Australia based on Australian cars,” Mr Clunes said.

“We’ll be looking also at some other ones that will take four-cylinder engines, which will come out of the MR2 or even a Honda, and we just have to get a transaxle out of a Volkswagen or a Porsche for it.”

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Motorhaus Garage | Feature

Offering a totally different perspective is another project from Motorhaus, which is the development of an EV which in that case will be done on a skateboard platform rather than a chassis. Mr Clune’s believes that EVs are now indelibly part of our automotive industry and cannot be ignored.

Two companies were approached to be part of that project, which will be three styles of EV; one will be with a single motor running through a differential and a gearbox, then a two-motor package and then an all-wheel drive package. All are based on the same skateboard platform with three or four body shapes.

The company is working on offering the base full kit which is interior, exterior and all electronics from under $50,000.

All the bodies for all vehicles, whether conventional or EV will be fibreglass.

When we spoke with Mr Clunes last, he was considering overseas suppliers for the fibreglass bodies but now that has changed due to ongoing complications with obtaining parts and shipments from overseas as well as rising costs of transportation. This will be an ongoing issue for Australia as costs have skyrocketed and delivery times are haphazard.

Motorhaus Garage is now sourcing local suppliers for their fibreglass bodies.

The next step in this journey for Motorhaus Garage is a crowd funding campaign, during July, but the company is happy to look at all options to get the projects moving forward including investments from companies that are already producing vehicles in Australia, possibly some of the smaller EV producers so long as it doesn’t take away from Motorhaus Garage’s core business.

www.saea.com.au

VTE | 25

Feature | The Ukraine Affect

Warfare in automotive Russia’s war reveals the fragility of the automotive supply chain

Disruptive and far reaching – this is the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and it is affecting every industry including automotive, which was already struggling after the pandemic, the chip shortage and the pressure to move to an electric and hydrogen future.

Chair of Skoda Thomas Schaefer said the Ukraine was an integral part of its supply chain and not just for cable harnesses, but other components and raw materials. But the harnesses were its biggest problem as you can’t retrofit these. Porsche is also experiencing wiring loom shortages as are other manufacturers.

Ukraine had become a popular place to manufacture wiring harnesses with assembly mostly by hand, requiring large numbers of skilled workers but labour was cheap and well educated so it worked a treat, until it stopped working. Ukraine was also in close proximity to European car factories making it even more attractive.

Skoda has partially relocated cable harness production from Ukraine to the Czech Republic in close coordination with the affected suppliers. It is also securing additional production capacities in Morocco and other countries to safeguard the company more effectively against disruptions in the future. The arrangements will allow for current production volumes to be doubled if necessary.

Because of war-related supply bottlenecks, Skoda was forced to suspend production of its all-electric ENYAQ iV for eight weeks due to a shortage of cable harnesses. So the carmaker and its suppliers quickly began looking into duplicating the production of cable harnesses at other manufacturing plants in Europe and North Africa.

Its production facilities are now staffed by 35 women from the Ukrainian plant in Lviv, who are training new employees. The company is also planning to duplicate the production of high-voltage cable harnesses required to charge electric vehicles, these will be manufactured in Romania.

Shipping in and out of Ukraine is also an ongoing issue even if some manufacturing remains operational in the country with shipping companies such as MSC and Maersk suspending container shipping from the region. Rail traffic was also suspended on the 26 | June/July 2022

Trans-Siberian Railway which supplies Chinese car factories.

Two major raw materials palladium and neon are supplied by Russia and Ukraine, these are critical to the production of integrated circuits and catalytic converters with an estimated 85 percent of total global palladium production going to production of catalytic converters.

Two Ukrainian companies Ingas and Cryoin are major suppliers of semiconductor grade neon, these companies have shut and so almost 50 percent of the total global supply is unavailable.

Carmakers are accelerating efforts to use less palladium and more platinum due to worries over palladium supply from Russia, the World Platinum Investment Council (WPIC) said, predicting a large surplus in the platinum market this year. They were already shifting to platinum, which is cheaper than palladium, to save money, but a faster transition would increase platinum demand and could lift prices while having the opposite effect on palladium.

Add to that the fact that Russia is, or was, the world’s largest nickel producer which is a key component in electric vehicle batteries and it’s a mega storm for the car industry. Russia is also a major supplier of iron and aluminium.

Sales of cars to Russia have slowed or stopped completely with companies such as Aston Martin pausing sales, Ford has suspended its joint venture in Russia, General Motors has stopped all exports, Jaguar Land Rover has halted deliveries, Daimler Truck has suspended its Russian operations and the list goes on.

Inside Russia the country is feeling the impacts of trade sanctions and its inability to source

the products it needs for vehicles it produces.

The country has officially dropped its safety standards and there is now no requirement for airbags after a shortage of electronic components and parts. ABS systems and other items will also be affected as will its environmental standards bringing them back to standards for vehicles produced in 1988.

Prices for spare parts in Russia have skyrocketed with suppliers now unable to readily supply spares and there are waiting lists, not surprisingly prices are up, and the black market is doing well in reselling stolen parts.

“At the moment, only two enterprises produce cars more or less stably – the Ulyanovsk UAZ and the Tula plant Haval,” reported Izvestiia.

In an interview with Ridus.ru, industry expert Sergei Aslanyan explained the depth of the crisis. “We don’t have electronics factories, we don’t have anything to make an engine out of. We have ‘Niva,’ which is 45 years old, 20 percent consists of imports,” he said referring to one model produced by Russian manufacturer Lada.

But he added: “It has pistons and piston rings from the American corporation Federal Mogul. And now we will even have nothing to assemble the Niva from. What are we going to make air bag systems from? Who will present us with an airbag? Nobody. We don’t even have bearings.”

And the country’s aviation industry is also under the hammer with airlines suffering from parts supply problems and having to use parts taken from broken aircraft to keep other aircraft operational.

Technical | Feature

Noi Kotev noi_kotev@hotmail.com Evan Favos evan.favos@outlookcom

Society of Automotive Engineers Australasia

Zero Emissions Vehicle Project VFACTS SUMMARY ANALYSIS The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (will be referred to as FCAI from here on) releases a highly regarded document containing a wide range of data on new vehicle sales in Australia every year known as VFACS. As per the scope of this ZEV market study, analysis on new ZEV vehicle purchases within the government sector of Australia has been done using VFACTS of the years 2015 to 2021. Relevant information pertaining to the study has then been collated and tabulated for an all-inclusive perspective of current market behaviour over the last six years.

The following is an exploration of total vehicle sales throughout Australia, followed by an analysis of these sales based on individual vehicle body-weight categories, then a deep dive into the distribution of those vehicle body-weight categories procured by government bodies; and lastly, the proportion of various ZEVs based on fuel types purchased.

Firstly, by collecting all the data from ‘New Vehicle Sales’ in VFACTS from the years of 2015 to 2021 a separate data table was created (shown in Appendix 1). This was turned into a line graph (Figure 1) for a visual representation of Australian state’s vehicle purchasing habits over these years. It is noticed that New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland hold the majority the country’s new vehicle purchases and so these will be the ones to focus on. It can be seen that New South Wales purchases the highest amount of vehicles overall than any other state, with their yearly maximum over the this time range at 397,273 vehicles purchased in 2017.

The state with the next highest number of new vehicles purchased in a single year is Victoria with 399,643 vehicles, also in the year of 2017. The next state to purchase the greatest number of vehicles over this range is Queensland, with a maximum yearly vehicle purchase of 235,674 in the year 2015.

Furthermore, this chart also shows the general trend of the new vehicle market in Australia. With all three of the top purchasing states showing a negative trendline signifying fewer new vehicle purchases over those years; with New South Wales and Victoria showing a 20% decrease and Queensland showing a 9.5% decrease. It is important to note that 2020 and 2021 sales are significantly decreased as these years signify www.saea.com.au

Figure 1

the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this general negative trendline is noticed even by observing solely the 2015 to 2019 yearly sales; with New South Wales showing a 11%, Victoria showing a 3.5%, and Queensland a 9.5% drop in sales (when disregarding the pandemic years).

The next section of VFACTS that has been analysed in depth is how market sales were distributed across various vehicles bodyweight sizes and if that affected their yearly sales. The FCAI has broken up the vehicle market by Passenger vehicles, SUVs, Light Commercial vehicles (comprising mostly of Utes and vans) and Heavy Commercial vehicles. For the sake of this analysis, Heavy Commercial vehicles will be disregarded as per the scope.

On first inspection it is clear that passenger vehicles sales have been steadily decreasing over the years of 2015 to 2021 while both

SUVs and Light Commercial vehicles have been increasing. Passenger sized vehicles dropped from 515,683 vehicles purchased per year in 2015 to 207,060 vehicles per year in 2021, showing a decrease of 60% in annual sales; meanwhile SUVs increased from 408,471 to 491,351 annual new vehicles sales showing a 20% increase and Light Commercial Vehicles increasing from 199,070 to 233,338 in annual new vehicles sales showing a 17% increase. Additionally, all three vehicle weight categories show a significant dip in sales in 2020, which again could be due to the pandemic. However, unlike passenger vehicles which continues its negative trendline during those pandemic years, SUVs and Light commercial vehicles overcome this and return to their positive trendline sales in the year of 2021 even during the pandemic.

VFACTS divides annual new vehicle sales by body-weight class as well as by which VTE | 27

Feature | Technical

new vehicle sales in Australia as categorised by fuel type. As per the scope, hybrid vehicles where not analysed and-so the two fuel sources inspected where Electric and Hydrogen based vehicles.

Figure 2 - Vehicle Sales Broken Up By Weight Class

purchasing sectors have bought them; specifically by the Private sector, Business sector, Government sector and Rental sector.

The following analyses was conducted solely on the government sector as per the scope.

As previously mentioned, passenger vehicle sales have been steadily decreasing over the years of 2015 and 2021, this negative trend continues in Figure 3 showing procurement by the government sector. It shows there has been a decrease of new vehicles procured by government entities from 17,220 sales in the year 2015 to 5,465 sales in the year 2021 signifying a 68% drop. On the contrary, SUV sales show a slight positive trendline over the same years. However, this data does not take into account the context of 2020 and 2021 which forced a much of the government sector to working from home over those years causing this severe decrease in sales.

To allow for this concession in sales, another version of this same analysis was conducted to view the trendline behaviour prior to the pandemic.

Here the increasing trendline for the

government sector’s procurement of new SUV and Light Commercial vehicles prior to the pandemic is easily noticed. With the steady increase in sales of SUV’s up 9% and of Light Commercial vehicles up 3%. Interestingly, it is seems that on years where SUVs reach a maximum amount of sales within the government sector, Light Commercial vehicles reach a minimum, and vice versa. Contextually speaking, each nodal point corresponds to an anti-node on the other vehicle. For instance, over 2017, 2018 and 2019 the SUV and Light Commercial vehicle sales alternate from node to antinode.

Although, as a whole both sectors continue to show a steady increase in sales.

The next point of analysis for Figure 4 is that Light commercial vehicles over all have a significantly higher amount of sales than Passenger sized or SUVs, averaging 2000 more new vehicle sales to the government sector in Australia than SUVs every year between 2015 and 2019.

The following, and last set of data analysed from VFACTS data is the total number of

As is clear, Electric vehicle sales have increased significantly over the years of 2015 to the year 2021. Starting with a new vehicle sales amount of 1,108 for the year of 2015 and increasing to 4,597 new vehicle sales in the year 2021; accomplishing an astonishing 315% sales increase. Hydrogen vehicles being still so new to the market, began their first sale in the year 2021 at 37 new vehicles being sold, which could be said to be a 370% increase to the previous year. Both fuel types show a significant competitive advantage with such profound sales increases over the past six years.

LOCAL STATE SUMMARY ANALYSIS Local state analysis was conducted by research interns in their respective states.

Conducted during the COVID19 pandemic and state-wide lockdowns, all communication was conducted online. The aim was to target local government institutions such as police stations and seek to find information relating to the procurement habits of said institutions.

State government research was conducted in three key states: NSW, Victoria and the ACT. For the ACT, a representative from the Zero Emissions Government shared insight into the sector in the ACT. In the ACT, 11% of the registered vehicles are Utes. Of these, there are 400 vehicles in the ACT Government fleet, which range from specialised vehicles which are used in residential and remote areas. Mainly focused on passenger vehicles, the government is aiming to expand their usage of ZEV for government fleet work by 2024.

From NSW, a contact from Investments in the NSW government was made. The information given was able to shed insights into the procurement process and financial situation of the current NSW government and the want to adopt ZEVs in government fleets.

There are 26 000 vehicles in the NSW government fleet. Of these, 12,000 are typical passenger vehicles (for example, Toyota Camry’s) and the remaining 14,000 are typical Ute vehicles. In NSW, the NSW Treasury manages all leases of vehicles for government fleets. However, the decisions as to what style of vehicles are procured are left to the individual government agencies, with treasury providing a buyers list for individuals to choose.

Figure 3 - Government Procurement of New Vehicles

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From Victoria, Police, Fire, Ambulance

Technical | Feature

and local government organisations were contacted. Although difficult to find solid figures on each department’s procurement details, certain information was able to be found. The Fire Rescue department in Victoria stated they had 227 vehicles excluding technical operations pods and pumpers, as per their 2020 annual reports.

As such, for more procurement information, it is recommended to contact local treasury directly for further information.

By going through the Spokesperson for Local Government, Planning, Transport and Industrial Relations – Sam Hibbins (Victorian Greens – Prahran), it was found that as of September 2021 there are 12,107 active vehicles in VicFleet which include 2376 hybrids and four EV. VicFleet uses a consistently updated list of vehicles (known as the ‘Approved Vehicles List’) from which government, departments and agencies are to choose their fleet of vehicles from, see Appendix 2.

Ambulance Victoria reported back with 1400 vehicles with more than half of those being Mercedes Sprinters for their ambulances.

Their next predominant vehicle type is the SUV which is used as their response vehicle and lastly the remaining are a mix of sedan and light commercial vehicles. They were also able to comment that hybrids are their vehicle of choice, with the exemption of ambulances, and they are in the process of assessing EVs for the most suitable role within their fleet.

DISCUSSION Through the data collected via VFACTS report and local state analysis, trends can be used to predict the future of the ZEV market and the feasibility of producing electric utilitarian vehicles here in Australia.

Figure 4 - Pre-Pandemic Government Procurement of New Vehicles

financial burdens created on the economy by the COVID19 pandemic, and as such with 2021 being a better year, we once again see sales increase in these categories.

Most importantly however is the purchasing of vehicles in the government sector. From 2015, there has been a 68% decrease in passenger vehicles in the government sector.

SUV sales over this period have stagnated, and light commercial vehicles have reduced in the 7-year period. Although the sales have reduced, it is important to note that light commercial sales are the only vehicles sales to government industry that has flattened over the 2020-2021 period, during which the COVID19 pandemic was in full effect.

Reading into data before and during the COVID19 pandemic is sometimes difficult, as such the government market share was analysed prior to the pandemic, where buying patterns are more predictable. Over the

period from 2015 to 2019, passenger vehicle purchasing by government services has decreased, whilst SUV and Light Commercial purchases have increased over this period. It is also important to note, Light commercial vehicles average over 2000 more sales to the government sector in Australian than SUVs. Through discussions with local government areas, there is an enthusiasm to switch to zero emission vehicles as replacements for current internal combustion Ute vehicles.

However, there are concerns over the current Australian infrastructure, and supply chain for building ZEVs in the country. However, in Australia, there is a push to build up the electric vehicle second-hand market. As such, local governments are looking to take that first step into the EV world, and there is no better way than to do this with an Australia built electric Ute vehicle.

However, there is some scepticism within the

The VFACTS data collected each year from 2015 to 2021 provides an excellent summary into the details of Australia over the 7-year period. From VFACTS, the largest new car market belongs to New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland. Looking at the trends, we see new vehicle sales dipping or staying the same across the three major states since 2017. Note this occurs before the effect of the COVID19 pandemic. However, since 2020, we see a strong increase in new vehicle purchases, even through the difficulties of the pandemic.

Throughout this period, there has been a decrease in passenger vehicle sales, dropping 60% in annual sales. At the same time, the market has grown for SUVs by 20% and for Light Commercial Vehicles by 17%. Although these increasing figures did show a slight dip in 2020, this can be explained due to the www.saea.com.au

Figure 5 – The Zero Emissions Vehicle Market in Australia VTE | 29

Feature | Technical

industry and government. A representative from the NSW government expressed their feelings towards government agencies wanting to go the ZEV route. There were two main motives they felt behind the push to ZEVs; moving to ZEVs is very fashionable in government to brand yourself as a ZEV supporter and can be used to profile. Or the government wants to help the environment.

However, the steps made to support ZEVs has made them feel Australia is not serious about ZEVs.

APPENDIX 1 Tabulated data derived from VFACTS [2015-2021. VFACTS. Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, p.1,2,5,6]

A representative from the ACT expressed keen optimism and an openness to change with a push to ZEVs, with agencies enthusiastic about the environment and wishing for a solution. A big concern of many is the problem of range anxiety. With certain council stations in the ACT, many vehicles are stored in large depos where electrical supply is limited. As such to maintain ZEVs the sites would require upgrades to allow for mass scale EV development.

It is important to note that hydrogen is becoming a bigger contender in the eyes of those looking for a cure to range anxiety.

It was expressed to us from the ACT representative that ZEV is not just about going electric – they do not wish to go down the route of just one solution and are open to the possibilities other sources of power can provide in the ZEV market.

CONCLUSION In conclusion, the market for utility vehicles in government sectors is the strongest of all the vehicle categories, beating out the declining passenger vehicle sector and emerging SUV area. With such a demand for utility vehicles in government sectors such as local council, police, fire and ambulance services, the utility vehicle provides the perfect baseline for ZEV technology. The cabin structure and flatbed design allows for modularity in the design of the vehicle, allowing the vehicle to have multiple purposes.

However, the scepticism shown by some members of government and within industry should not be ignored. The current infrastructure in Australia would require a large network upgrade to support the transition from combustion to ZEV. Although it is suggested that with an influx of ZEVs in the government network, this would improve public and government perspective and grow the ZEV market within Australia, thus requiring greater infrastructure support.

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APPENDIX 2 Department of Treasury and Finance Victoria. 2022. Approved Vehicle List.

Available at: <https://www.dtf.vic.gov.au/vicfleet/approved-vehicle-list>