Rio Tinto expects to put Volvo “sustainable” autonomous hauling solutions through their paces at its mines under a reciprocal agreement that could see it supplying aluminium, copper and maybe lithium and other metals to the Swedish manufacturer.
The mining major said this week it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Volvo “to support the decarbonisation of Rio Tinto’s operations and deliver low-carbon materials for use in Volvo’s innovative product range, including electric and autonomous vehicles”.
The companies will work together to strengthen the supply of responsibly sourced low-carbon materials such as Rio’s RenewAl aluminium, aluminium produced using its ELYSISTM zero-carbon smelting technology, Aluminium Stewardship Initiative certified aluminium and Copper Mark certified copper, and explore product development opportunities such as the supply of lithium for batteries.
Volvo Autonomous Solutions said its Transport as a Service (TaaS) autonomous hauling solution included a vehicle purpose-built for autonomous driving (no operator cab), a virtual driver, infrastructure, operations and uptime support, and a cloud solution that controlled the transport system and managed logistics flows.
