The mining magnate is rapidly expanding and overhauling Oxford-based WAE, which Fortescue bought last year, as part of its green-energy drive.
| Mining and green energy billionaire Andrew Forrest has revealed plans to transform his recently acquired British Formula 1 car designer WAE into the key hub for Fortescue’s worldwide battery and electric vehicle ambitions.
He then aims to turn WAE - acquired as Williams Advanced Engineering in March last year, and now rebranded as a Fortescue company - into a global supplier to the mining industry.“WAE can grow into the leading-edge battery cell supplier in the world,” he told reporters at the WAE’s research facility in Grove, near Oxford. “This is just the start.”
The Banbury facility will make batteries and powertrains that can be fitted into new Liebherr trucks, which are manufactured in the US. They could also be retrofitted into Fortescue’s existing fleet, at a Liebherr facility in Western Australia. From an original workforce of about 250, Fortescue has already ramped up WAE’s payroll to about 700. The Banbury site will initially add another 120 engineers and skilled workers. And the three sites - the RD hub at Grove, the train facility at Kidlington, and the battery complex at Banbury - will have a combined 1000 workers by the end of this year.
“This growth will occur. It will happen. It’s just, will it be by a proud British-Australian company? That’s the question. So we are working quickly to unlock all those roadblocks.”The WAE complex in Oxfordshire will also work on a prototype three-megawatt-hour charging station for the trucks, which would be powered by a 60 megawatt solar farm at Christmas Creek, in the Pilbara.
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