Forrest in race for self-drive supremacy
ANDREW Forrest’s Fortescue Metals has emerged as an unlikely rival to Google and Tesla, launching a new research centre into self-driving cars.
Fortescue has announced it will establish a research and development centre in the Pilbara iron ore town of Karratha “to explore opportunities for the application of autonomous mobility technology in an urban environment”.
The centre will leverage off Fortescue’s growing expertise in autonomous vehicles, which are already used extensively across its Pilbara iron ore operations.
The miner already has more than 100 self-driving trucks at its mines and is in the process of moving to a fully autonomous fleet.
It also plans to trial selfdriving light vehicles at its Christmas Creek mine.
Fortescue chief executive Elizabeth Gaines said the company already had an autonomous fleet that safely travelled over 26 million kilometres since the first truck was introduced in 2012.
“We’ll be exploring all facets of the future of mobility including software, hardware and various forms of mobility solutions, to see where opportunities lie,” Ms Gaines said.