SAE Electric – Sea Change

Sea Change

SEA Electric a home-grown competitor making waves in the global electric truck environment

Glen Walker, Regional Director Oceania, SEA Electric

Overseas there’s a huge push underway with electric vehicles, including electric trucks and SEA Electric is an Australian company ensuring Australia is a pivotal part of that push and while it may seem a new company it was in fact founded by Tony Fairweather almost 10 years ago. Then it was trialling, developing, testing and gathering the intellectual resources it needed as a start -up, now while its roots remain in Australia it has spread to the US with its HQ in Los Angeles and other facilities in Des Moines and Iowa in the US, as well as Melbourne Australia, Auckland New Zealand, Bangkok Thailand and Vienna Austria. “The pivot to the US started probably three years ago now. And it’s one of the largest markets on Earth,” Glen Walker, Regional Director Oceania, SEA Electric said. “There’s a very heavy focus on electric vehicles, and a very welcoming political environment around those electric vehicles. So, it was natural that the business would concentrate an ever-increasing part of its resources in that market. That market is between 10 and 15 times larger than Australia.”

The market is so important that the company recently injected US$42 million ($58m) to add assembly capacity creating a potential for around 60,000 units per year. Further US assembly, including in the area of batteries, is expected to come about in the near future. SEA Electric’s California-based headquarters has the largest capability and the addition of a Des Moines Technical Centre and planned offices in Chicago, Brooklyn and Miami represents SEA Electric’s commitment to the market.

“There’s a huge opportunity for electric trucks to thrive in North America, as there is in Europe and Asia, and quite frankly, across the across the globe,” Mr Walker said. “We have formal operations in North America, New Zealand, Australia, Thailand and in Europe. So that the company has a footprint that you could argue is quite global. We have also sold vehicles or developed vehicles in many other countries.”

Australian engineering with a hefty nod to the US

Predominately SEA’s trucks have been the result of work completed by Australian engineers, with manufacturing facilities in Dandenong, Victoria as well as a range of facilities in the US with a footprint in Iowa, California and soon also in Illinois and Florida.

In Australia the company employs around 50 staff, with another 50 staff in the US but the US footprint is growing rapidly and will soon exceed Australia’s numbers. Around 25 percent of the workforce both in Australia and overseas is made up of degree qualified engineers; mechanical, electrical, software and mechatronic.

“And it’s not just an engineering role in an automotive company. It’s an engineering role in a very future focused automotive company,” Mr Walker explained. “In Australia, we are now an original equipment manufacturer. We have our own compliance plate and our own brand, a national dealer network, our own pricing and sales and service. We have become a truck company.” At Australia’s largest truck event, the Brisbane Truck Show which was held in May this year the company showcased its full range of electric trucks for the first time. “Our own SEA-badged trucks, including the SEA 300 EV and SEA 500 EV in Australia, are

derived from OEM Semi Knock-Down kits, creating further efficiencies to pass on to our customer base whilst supporting rapid OEM expansion into this segment,” founder Tony Fairweather said at the event.

The company’s three medium-size EV truck models are sold through a dozen authorised dealers in Australia, while more than 220 US dealers are available to support the North American market. Mr Walker explained the commercial arrangement as a Semi Knock Down (SKD) Assembly Operation creating SKD ‘Glider’ kits, a first-of-its kind three-way process that begins with the cab, frame rails, wheels and axle components arriving in Australia in containers from Japan, and upon arrival assembled to provide a rolling chassis to support the appropriate proprietary SEADrive® power system to create a completely assembled SEA Electric-branded vehicle. The vehicles are then ready for distribution. But it is their SKD assembly operation’s efficiency that creates a real gamechanger for SEA Electric. With consistency of assembly, and a process that provides multiple efficiencies, there is little waste, often eliminating extra componentry that previously would have been discarded in other retrofitting processes.

SEA Electric’s expanding truck range

The Brisbane Truck Show highlighted five new SEA Electric branded truck models, including the launch of the SEA 300-45 EV and the SEA 300-85 EV. Both models are fully ADR compliant and assembled in Melbourne for Australian distribution. SEA Electric’s proprietary SEA-Drive® power-systems come in a variety of configurations for all-electric models with a GVM range of 4.5t through to 26t each designed for 3,000 charge cycles based on a full overnight charge, if applied five days per week that can result in optimum performance for 10 years. All up SEA has five models built on two different platforms. The 300 Series vehicles from 4.5 to 8.5 tonnes are joined by the 500 Series vehicles which are available from 14.5 tonnes all the way up to 22.5 tonnes. They are either two or three axle rigids. Within this there are five battery sizes and five electric motors which can be mixed and matched to suit the application. SEA’s newest release is its 300-45 model which is designed, engineered and assembled in Australia. Its car licence driver rating means it will open up a whole new buyer profile as well as uses for last mile deliveries. With its batteries and power-system positioned away from the steer axle this truck has improved weight distribution and optimised driving dynamics which are important points for this sector.

There is no doubt that in Australia electric is mainly for shorter haul of around 200 kilometres a day and best suited to densely populated cities, so a fast charger is always available. “Our trucks are unique in the EV world in that they come equipped with a charging system already installed that charges 22 kilowatts per hour off a standard three phase plug. The fast charge charges at 88 kilowatts per hour,” Mr Walker said.

“So, the time to refuel a vehicle depends upon the capacity of the battery. It’s not linear, the time does slow as it gets to beyond 80 percent full, the remaining 20 percent takes longer to fill. “You can basically say the time to 80 percent charge is 88 kilowatt/hours times the capacity of the battery to that 80 percent timeline. So, if the battery is, let’s say 100 kilowatt/ hours, the 80 percent charge would be approximately an hour.”

Electric vehicle constraints have not been holding back potential buyers especially those that the company says are ‘best categorized by first mile or last mile’ vehicles where they are used to pick up freight. Examples of uses for the vehicle are refuse collection, last mile deliveries and delivery to customers such as the home delivery of food. Every municipality, and there are 600 in Australia, have requirements for service vehicles for parks and gardens, poles and wires, footpaths, and general maintenance vehicles. These return to base every day and these are where SEA Electric is seeing a very large take up as they not only do the fit the bill in terms of function, reliability, ease of service and quiet operation but they show the community the municipality’s green credentials.

Expanding the horizon

Sales in Australia are going well, very well as more companies and government institutions realise the potential of SEA Electric trucks which means the company is outgrowing its current facilities in Dandenong South, though the company does have remote staff across Australia. Design, engineering and assembly operations remain at Dandenong and Mr Walker said that there are active plans to at least double the size of the current facility in the coming months. There was also talk about expanding into other areas with the company’s electric know-how such as lighter duty commercial vehicles like vans or perhaps even some type of passenger transport. The only comment forthcoming from Mr Walker was watch this space, so there may be lighter issues to discuss in the future, likewise there may be something in the future of a heavier nature as well. “At the moment, battery electric technology only is not really suited to high GVM high kilometre vehicles. And we’re focusing very much on battery electric vehicles at the moment,” Mr Walker said. “But I can assure you we are in the early stages of looking at range extending devices for those battery electric vehicles. “There is very little development currently being conducted on diesel or petrol technology engines and that has been decided by car and truck manufacturers worldwide. The future is some form of zero emission technology. So right now, the best example of that is electric.”