1st Armoured Regiment to trial revised electric Bushmaster

Defence industry magazine ADM reports that the Australian Army’s 1st Armoured Regiment will trial a modified version of Newcastle-based 3ME’s electrically propelled Bushmaster ePMV in its new role as an experimental unit.

Army unveiled the ePMV, powered by a 113-kilowatt-hour battery, at the 2022 Chief of Army Symposium in Adelaide. The design’s key benefits, touted at the time, were its lower thermal signature compared to a normal Bushmaster and the ability to loiter silently and easily export power.

Those benefits came with a significant penalty to range, says ADM. Compared to the standard Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicle (PMV), the ePMV could only drive around a third as far and was reliant on deployable generators to charge.

To address those constraints while preserving some of the benefits of electrification, the ePMV prototype is now being converted to a hybrid diesel-electric configuration. The upgrade will extend the ePMV’s range to be comparable with the standard Bushmaster PMV while maintaining a ‘comparable’ logistics footprint.

“The Australian Army is working with Australian defence industry to upgrade its prototype electric Bushmaster protected mobility vehicle (ePMV) to a diesel-electric hybrid. This upgrade will provide the ePMV with a range comparable to the standard Bushmaster vehicle,” a Defence spokesperson told ADM.

“Once the hybrid-electric ePMV prototype is produced, 1st Armoured Regiment will conduct field-testing and evaluation of the ePMV as the Australian Army’s experimental unit.”

However, Defence did not respond directly to questions from ADM about the total cost of the program, or if platforms based on the hybrid ePMV are intended to enter service.

The timeline for the prototype undergoing testing is also unclear.