The world’s transport sector finds itself in the middle of an unprecedented energy transition, and it’s a transition that is struggling to keep up with the need for progress.
The current shift from traditional diesel transport to sustainable and renewable sources has been a huge undertaken that has flown at times. However, it has also sputtered and struggled to progress against difficult challenges.
One of the largest of those challenges to face the transition of Australian road transport has been the unique size and geography of the country’s landmass, along with its isolation from the rest of the world as an import/export partner.
Those challenges have seen Australia lag behind the more congested regions of Europe and Asia in the transition of heavy transport sector, but progress is still undoubtedly being made, and new solutions are constantly being implemented.
Australian company Janus Electric is celebrating its fifth year of operation in 2025 and operates in the key space between purchases of new trucks. Instead, it specialises in converting existing heavy vehicles from traditional diesel to battery-electric alternatives.
With the average age of Australia’s heavy vehicle fleet sitting at approximately 14 years, the trucks bought now will likely still be in service by the advent of the 2040s, and replacing Australia’s whole existing fleet with new, electric models over the next two decades is just not feasible.
Alongside this five year milestone has come a huge impending change for Janus. It has been announced the company is set to be fully acquired by ReNu Energy Limited, with the impending merger then to be listed on the ASX.
Co-founder and CEO Lex Forsyth will stay on with the company as Chief Operating Officer, while the entire board of directors is set to be refreshed ahead of the next step in the company’s journey.
In an interview conducted with ATN prior to the public announcement of the merger with ReNu Energy, Forsyth discussed how Janus’ technology is confronting the reality of Australia’s transport decarbonisation task through the transplant of electric hearts into ‘diesel donors’.
“If you look at the average age of fleets around the world, right across the planet it usually sits somewhere between 12 and 14 years,” Forsyth says.
“So, you’ve got trucks that have typically done two or three engine rebuilds and might have multiple owners in that time, and they’re still being utilised on the road.
“Our driving force is how we can actually make a difference to an industry that is low capital cost, a low burden on capital expenditure, and can be scaled effectively.
“The reality is OEMs can only manufacture five per cent of the fleet at maximum capacity as a replacement every year. If you look at Australia’s class eight market, there are 124,000 registered prime movers. If we started immediately today it could take 20, 25 years.
“The challenge is fleets can’t decarbonise with the target and emissions goals that are being set. We looked at it and said, ‘we don’t want to be another truck manufacturer’. Kenworth, Volvo, Scania all create great trucks, so rather than introduce a whole new model to the industry, how do we electrify it?
“That’s where the idea came from … we use existing infrastructure and existing trucks, we take the diesel engine out, the exhaust systems, everything, and it gets a brand-new electric motor and transmission and all the ancillary services, so an air compressor, power steering, pumps, water pumps, a new radiator and air conditioner.
“We’re essentially giving a heart transplant to a donor vehicle and electrifying it.”
Australia’s natural rich deposits of critical minerals have positioned the nation well to be a major international player in the battery industry, and that has been recognised by industries and governments associated with the sector over Janus’ five-year journey.
The Queensland government is in the process of implementing its Queensland Battery Industry Strategy, which is a multi-faceted plan allocating almost $600 million targeted at growing all aspects of the industry in the state.
Volvo has also recently confirmed it is exploring the construction of electric trucks at its Wacol facility.
Battery and hydrogen technology is set to play a key role in the evolution of the South Australian town of Whyalla’s industrial capacity, while mining companies across Western Australia are adding hydrogen and battery-electric haulage vehicles to their specialised fleets.
With such a national shift towards the battery industry, Forsyth says it is important for Australian companies to maintain a manufacturing presence in the country to progress the creation of jobs and progression of technology in the sector.
“It’s critical,” he says. “When you look at how to build skills and actually fix things, it all starts with manufacturing.
“Volvo and Kenworth have a good manufacturing presence here in Australia, and it’s a great breeding grown to upskill labour throughout Australia to be able to fix this product.
“Without businesses like ours, you don’t have 30 or 40 people there that are learning about this technology who can then share it and impart their wisdom to others.
“If we don’t do it then we’re just going to get imported models because the market is not big enough. Whereas if we create a new market here in Australia around trucks that have already been built, it gives a great recycling program for the truck.
“Essentially, we’re recycling the old diesel truck to become an electric truck and improving its safety systems and quality as a product.
“It’s important to maintain Australian manufacturing so we foster skills here in the country.
“It is simply a requirement, otherwise it will become a ‘take it because this is what is happening in Europe’, mentality.
“The majority of our product is made of Australian components we manufacture here, but obviously there are imported components we have to use because we don’t build electric motors in Australia.
“But we put system together here and put it into some really great trucks like Kenworth T909s, T609s, T409s, the Volvo FH product, the Freightliner Cascadia and Coronado, Mack Tridents and Super-Liners, Western Stars.
“It’s been extremely rewarding to see some of the heaviest electric trucks in the world being developed in Australia by Australian engineering and an Australian production team.”
With such a vast number of trucks and manufacturers holding the ability to be converted to electric by Janus, the company has had to overcome a variety of engineering hurdles to make its product tenable to operators and businesses across the country.
Truck drivers themselves are also notorious for being creatures of habit, and rightly so. They spend so long in their cabs that they discover what is most comfortable for them, and what helps them get the job done to the best of their ability.
Forsyth says driver response to Janus’ motor replacement method has been so positive, that many don’t want to go back to diesel once they’ve experienced the benefits of electric.
“One of the big things for our drivers is they still have that familiarity that comes with driving their Kenworth or their Western Star,” he says.
“They’re not bombarded with a heap of technology changes in the cab or being pushed to sitting in the middle of the cab like they’re going to have to with some of these new models.
“They still get the feeling of still driving their Kenworth, or whatever truck they might have.
“It’s interesting, you talk to the Cement Australia drivers in Sydney and they don’t want to be shifted from their electric truck into a diesel truck, and it’s really interesting to hear the shift around that.
“These electric trucks are smooth, they’re quiet, there’s no heat or vibration. It’s a different experience in familiar surroundings.
“Making meaningful change for the driver is what it’s about, along with improving the asset for the fleet.
“I come from a transport background, and I still have a love affair with V8 Value Liners for the noise they make.
“Some of these guys have been die-hard diesel drivers, but now they love their electric truck.”
What’s next, then, for the electric vehicle industry? Since Janus first came to be five years ago the landscape has already dramatically changed from what it was, and it continues to move and shift in the face of more and more challenging emissions regulations and targets with ever-shrinking timeframes.
Forsyth believes more support needs to be given the small and medium sized transport operators in order to impact tangible, rapid change throughout the sector.
“I think the industry could be a little bit more progressed than it is today,” Forsyth says. “I think there have been some technology issues that have held it back, but I don’t see that as the main concern anymore.
“The technology is there and there are really good applications for it. The challenges are the higher capital costs and the infrastructure requirements – mainly for fixed battery.
“There are a lot of discussions around one megawatt charging and its implications on a grid structure that can’t support it, so we came up with a swappable battery solution that takes about four minutes.
“Our solution, we believe, is the government needs to look at assisting where they can and not do it in a concentrated manner where only the top few transport companies in Australia have access to a lot of those funds.
“The change that will be created across the industry will not be led by those top two companies, it will be led by the greater majority, so we need a way to make the technology accessible to all.
“How do we get shared infrastructure to make the electrification transition more affordable so we’re not paying for it in the costs of goods on grocery shelves and in supply chains?
“I think that comes back to simple policy. Fund what you want, tax what you don’t want. This is not me saying I think governments need to raise taxes further, but I think there are more efficient ways of deploying these funds to help this transition and remove some of the fear operators have from doing it and improve infrastructure availability and drive costs out of manufacturing.
“If we don’t do these sorts of things we lose out to other parts of the world.”
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