Last week, electric heavy vehicle infrastructure pioneer NewVolt hosted more than 80 people on the site of what is set to become Australia’s first open-access battery electric truck charging hub – the first of three in Melbourne.
The site, conveniently located in Laverton North, will be able to recharge over 100 trucks per day via 12 drive-through bays (no reversing required). It will feature ultra-fast charging capabilities and could be open as soon as Q4 2026.
HVIA members Daimler Truck Australia Pacific, CMV Truck and Bus, and Protran Solutions were also on hand to showcase the truck and trailer combinations that may one day call in regularly at the site as part of their regular freight transport operations.
NewVolt hosted over 80 people on the site of what is set to become Australia’s first open-access battery electric truck charging hub
HVIA’s Chief Technical Officer Adam Ritzinger was invited to speak as part of the day’s formalities, and offered this perspective on the event:
This site, where we are standing, is kicking off a dedicated national charging network for electric trucks. So all of us, right now, are witnessing the very start of an era-defining energy infrastructure transition.
Normally when someone says that it’s a platitude, or a metaphor. But today, right now, here, it is the literal, physical, actual truth. The future freight transport energy transition is starting and we’re all here to witness it.
It’s difficult to find a comparable moment in history, so I’m going to use a bit of creative license, but bear with me on this one.
Pictured above (clockwise): HVIA’s Adam Ritzinger and NewVolt Co-Founders Rainer Knobloch and Anthony Headlam
One hundred and forty years ago, in 1886 Carl Benz patented the first internal combustion engine automobile. Now, he was a brilliant engineer, but lousy at marketing.
So his wife, Bertha Benz, took the only prototype, without his knowledge, and set off on a 100-kilometre publicity tour in central Germany to prove its success. Along the way, she had to refuel. And that was an issue. There were no fuel stations. And there were no fuel stations, because there were no cars. She was literally driving the first one.
So she stopped at the pharmacy in a small town called Wiesloch and bought the entire supply of Ligroin, a petroleum-ether product that used at the time as a solvent. That purchase made the pharmacy in Wiesloch the world’s first fuel station.
And that’s analogous to what we’re kicking off here today. Things don’t exist until they are created. The entire industry and freight sector, including HVIA members, has long called for low-cost, reliable energy supply with advanced charging infrastructure to propel freight transport to its next stage.
Carl and Bertha, and all the technology and infrastructure that followed, allowed us to swap horses and carts for internal combustion engines. Today, NewVolt are allowing us to swap those engines for electric motors, and re-charge them, on a national scale. No pharmacies necessary!
The NewVolt team deserve our recognition for their pioneering vision and bravery to forge new paths into the unknown, to bring us to this point today.