An Australian start-up wants to mass-produce autonomous electric vehicles, and potentially build a battery gigafactory.
CEO of start-up A2emCo, Michael Molitor, has revealed that the company aims to produce almost completely Australian made, fully autonomous vehicles by 2020.
According to Molitor, the vehicle’s prototype is already designed, with six evaluation prototypes being built overall. While these prototypes are being built overseas, Molitor intends to move production to Australia.
“We’re looking at Q4 2019, Q1 2020, we’ll have vehicles on the road in Australia. And we like to under-promise and over deliver, so it may be better than that,” he told RenewEconomy.
In order to power these vehicles, A2emCo wants to build an energy storage gigafactory, much like the one recently built by Tesla. Molitor has already consulted with Peter Carlsson, Tesla’s former head of operations who built the company’s gigafactory in Nevada, Las Vegas.
A2emCo’s factories will utilise advanced manufacturing platforms being developed by Siemens, and will focus on reducing costs along the production line, according to Molitor. The company also intends to use local suppliers, labour and materials.