Subs exclusive: What's next for Williams Advanced Engineering

Both partners are at pains to point out that the project uses expertise WAE has developed – and will keep developing – from its deep connections with both modern motorsport and performance car engineering.

WAE CEO Craig Wilson, who has his own rich pedigree in automotive businesses, is adamant that the company must keep its car connections to stay ahead of the game.

“Technology moves very quickly in the automotive sector, so it’s vital that we keep our connection,” he said.

“We’ve always been automotive innovators, and our link with Fortescue is already advancing our engineering power. Until now, we’ve lived from project to project. Now, we will start investing selectively in R&D for its own sake.”

WAE’s partnership with Fortescue grew out of a close, two-year supplier-client relationship, said Wilson.

He explained: “Andrew Forrest is very particular about building a creative culture, and so are we, and we just hit it off. “Once we started working together, Fortescue soon realised they would need more bespoke engineering than they initially expected.

A lot of what they will need can’t be bought off the shelf.” Fortescue’s targets could hardly be more ambitious. As well as the two electrified truck powertrains, its decarbonisation target requires many of the vehicles to be autonomous, capable of running without drivers 24 hour a day, seven days a week. They are likely to be monitored from a nerve centre in Perth, Western Australia’s capital.

Then there’s the Infinity Train. When Forrest announced the WAE acquisition, he also forecast the development of a new kind of train that will use gravity to generate electricity as it descends a slope on the way to disgorging its ore at Port Hedland, then employ that energy to drive back uphill to collect the next load. It’s practically perpetual motion.

The partners’ commitment to hydrogen power is strong and certain, asserted Wilson.

“We see it as a completely green fuel,” he said. “It may not be as energy-dense as fossil fuels, but you can offset that to an extent in the way that you generate hydrogen and use it.

“We have battery power, but that’s currently associated with supply chain and rareearth supply problems. “In any case, what else is there but hydrogen? If we were forced to go green tomorrow, it would be the only solution.”

Once the targets have been achieved, Forrest believes the partners’ achievements will encourage mining operations around the world to use similar carbon-neutral techniques – a highly significant contribution to stopping climate change.

And the hydrogen, produced in optimal regions around the world (such as Western Australia, where the sun shines and the wind blows) can be used either in other operations’ mining vehicles or as a zerocarbon fuel in wider society.

For all of his close car connections, Wilson seems most excited by WAE’s potentially important role in helping to stop climate change.

“Imagine if we could look back in five years’ time and say we had played a major role in decarbonising the whole mining industry,” he said. “How great would that be?”