HIGH PROFILE
The GR8 EV Grader is an 18 ft( 5.5 m) allelectric pit-class grader to be powered by a Fortescue Zero battery power system
MacLean sets nimble engineering team on surface mining pursuit
The ability to start from a true clean slate design has the MacLean team sensing a big market opportunity, Dan Gleeson hears
It has been less than 18 months since representatives from MacLean Engineering and Fortescue Metals stood in Las Vegas at MINExpo 2024 and heralded a partnership to build at least 30 batteryelectric graders for the mining major to use in the Pilbara of Western Australia, with progress on this ground-up design having been impressive.
Mining companies have been quick to engage with the mining OEM community to explore the zero emission, diesel-alternative options for loading and haulage, but, overall, have been slower to consider the production support and ancillary vehicle side of the business.
Fortescue Metals is an exception, having contracted MacLean for these vehicles as part of its wider‘ Real Zero’ plans.
For MacLean, this contract is very much a‘ flagship’ one, allowing it to establish a foothold in the surface mining sector.
Clean slate design
Dan Stern, Senior Product Manager at MacLean, says the opportunity to create clean slate designs is an important lever to introduce new ideas and change the paradigm of what a fit-for-purpose product looks like for surface mining.
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“ The biggest advantage we, at MacLean, have is the fact that we don’ t make a lot of this surface mining equipment today, so we’ re not an OEM looking to electrify existing diesel equipment designs,” he said.“ There’ s a lot of disadvantages of carrying out what would be retrofit builds as you’ re not designing around the power system; you’ re instead looking to fit this power system into an envelope it was not designed for.“ We are starting from a true clean slate.” That clean slate has been influenced by more than 50 years developing underground mining equipment and a decade of batteryelectric vehicle experience underground – with the result being more than 100 BEVs built – plus copious voice of customer interviews geared towards building“ fit-forpurpose” equipment, he added.
Close to 18 months on from the Las Vegas announcement, the first machine – a GR8 EV Grader – is already in Owen Sound, Ontario, being built, with plans to ship this to Australia in late 2026.
Stern said:“ A timeframe of just over one year for the design and build process is very short in heavy equipment manufacturing terms, which really emphasises just how agile and fast-paced we are as a company.”
The GR8 EV Grader in question is an 18 ft( 5.5 m) all-electric pit-class grader to be powered by a Fortescue Zero battery power system, making it one of the first batteryelectric graders for surface mining. This battery system is likely to be around“ four times higher energy capacity” than what MacLean decks its underground machine, the Maclean GR5, out with. According to David Jacques, VP – Engineering & Surface Mining Vehicles at MacLean, the vehicle boasts a top speed of 45 km / h, four to five hours of operation and a more than 100 km driving range on a single charge.
It is not just the electrification element that stands out in the GR8. This is a fresh take on a pit-class grader that has adopted several other improvements based on voice of customer feedback.
The operator’ s environment is 30 % larger than other grader cabs, which allowed MacLean to include a trainer seat that was a popular request among customers.
“ This additional seat, which comes factory fitted, will not only allow that skills transfer to happen at a much more accelerated pace than in the past; it will also allow mechanics to, say, sit in a cab with an operator and troubleshoot some of the issues that were previously considered‘ guesswork’,” Stern said.
Jacques added:“ The cab has been a major focal point for us in terms of design. We’ ve paid a lot of attention to lines of sight and visibility, removing all the standard‘ blockages’ that get in the way. On top of that, we’ ve introduced the first ever operator seat that has a pivoting feature, so you can index it to suit the actual line of sight that you want to achieve, significantly improving the operator experience.”
Operators are also likely to appreciate the relocation of hydraulic pumps and motors from the behind the cab to the front of the grader too, since the battery-electric design is notably quieter than its diesel counterpart.“ If you leave those pump and motors directly behind the cab where they are normally located in a diesel machine, an operator is going to hear that and find it distracting,” Jacques said.“ So, moving this system to the very front in a well packaged module and submersing the pumps in the tank greatly reduces the noise pollution for the operator that we believe will produce the quietest cab in the industry.”
While the first prototype with these elements will head to Australia in late-2026, the commercial battery-electric fleet of GR8s will begin arriving in early 2028 through 2030 to meet Fortescue’ s decarbonisation mandate.
International Mining | APRIL 2026