24/07/2026
Sunswap Endurance works inside Woolworths supply chain.
A battery-electric, solar-assisted transport refrigeration unit, dropped into live multi-drop metro operations out of Primary Connect Heathwood distribution centre in Queensland — running the same routes as any diesel unit in the fleet.
Here's what 3 weeks told us.
Every route, every delivery cycle, every hour — the unit held its 0°C setpoint for 40 store deliveries, on South East Queensland routes.
A quarter of the energy was free
The unit's solar array generated 122.2 kWh — about a quarter of everything it consumed. Energy the operator didn't pay for, didn't plug in for, and didn't burn a drop of diesel to produce.
One day says it all
On 18 April, the Sunswap Endurance ran a full shift: two separate routes,4 store drops, over 11hrs.
Shore power used: zero.
Diesel burned: zero.
Battery remaining: 66%.
What it adds up to
Over the 3 week trail the unit avoided 332.4 litres of diesel and 890.8 kg of CO₂.
Annualised, that's roughly 7,580 litres of diesel and over 20 tonnes of CO₂ — per unit, per year. From one trailer, doing ordinary work. Apply this to your current fleet and that's a significant fuel and emissions savings.
Where we go from here
Sunswap Endurance proved it can do the work — chilled, multi-drop, real volume, real customer, zero compromise on the cold chain. It sits alongside our other results: a 1,671 km Sydney–Brisbane return run finishing with 62% battery and no diesel, and an 816 km Hume Highway run at −22°C frozen for 15hrs.
Chilled metro. Frozen long-haul. The endurance to do both.
The technology is ready. The freight task is enormous. The financing — backed by a $10M CEFC commitment through Protran — makes fleet-scale conversion commercially real, not aspirational.
If you run refrigerated freight in Australia and you've waited for the proof before taking electric seriously: it's here.
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