SCT - Scott Tech

[Snoopy]

Collaboration for charging E vehicles with CAT
For refueling diesel. How big is this?
https://scottautomation.com/en/produ...ation/robofuel

You are conflating a couple of stories here. That video link concerns the robo-filling of giant diesel dump trucks.

The world needs materials to be mined. But it is a dirty business, unfortunately. So one way miners can 'cut down on their filth' is to remove the diesel emissions of their heavy vehicles on site. Caterpillar, is a large US manufacturer of 'off highway' commercial vehicles. Caterpillar dump trucks can haul up to 400tons of material, and such vehicles can cost up to $US3.5million each. Caterpillar are now looking at supplementing their diesel truck range with equivalent sized electric vehicles.

https://www.caterpillar.com/en/news/...ing-truck.html

Electrical energy cannot be stored as 'weight effectively' as diesel oil. That means giant electrically fuelled off road trucks will have to be re-fuelled more often if they want to do the same task as their diesel powered equivalents.

Scott's have their own proven robotic technology to refuel 'off road' diesel mining trucks. Caterpillar have seen this and have signed a co-operative deal with Scotts:

1/ Caterpillar will supply the electric off road dump trucks.
2/ Scotts will supply the on site 'electric fuel bowsers' to do robotic re-fuelling over the day, without employing any humans in the re-fuelling process.

Scotts were selected as Caterpillar's business partner in the 'electric mining truck race' because of Scott's dual experience in artificial vision systems and robotics applications.

Caterpillar currently have around 5,000 full sized off road mining trucks in service around the world (Source Scotts 2022 AGM). Even if all of these went electric overnight, then I would estimate the total global demand for 'electric mine site bowsers' would be less than one sixth of that - say 800. And if the global conversion to electric took place over 20 years, then that would be 40 new 'electric bowser' installations per year. Even if half of existing mine operators chose not to convert (by continuing to use diesel or opting for hydrogen power), that would still be 20 new 'electric bowser' installations every year for 20 years. But this level of business would require 'proof of concept' co-operation with one or two key customers first. So I would be surprised to see more than one or two of these electric bowsers being made over the next two years. IOW this 'Caterpillar deal' will be more of a 'consumer of funds' than 'an earner' over FY2023 and FY2024. We also have to bear in mind this is a 'substitute business'. For every one 'robotic electric bowser sale' by Scotts, that is one less potential 'robotic diesel bowser sale' by Scotts.

Ironically one of the drivers in the growth of the mining market today is increasing worldwide demand for Lithium. And Lithium is one of the elements used in creating batteries for electric vehicles!

SNOOPY