Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wants us making cars again — but in Bendigo, Victoria, the production lines never really stopped.
Protected mobility vehicles (PMVs) for the Australian Army are being designed, engineered and built onsite, offering a glimpse of what Australian manufacturing can do.
It all started with the Ordnance Factory Bendigo in 1942, producing heavy artillery and naval guns.
The operation became part of government-owned Australian Defence Industries in 1989, before being taken over by Thales Australia — a subsidiary of French multinational defence and technology company Thales Group — in 2006.
Over the years, it’s produced two of Australia’s best-known PMVs — the Bushmaster and Hawkei — with a third, the autonomous hybrid Bladehaul, just announced last week at Land Forces 2026.
Thales Australia operates 35 manufacturing sites nationwide, with five major hubs dedicated to advanced military production.
Bushmaster
The Bushmaster four-wheel-drive first produced in Bendigo in 1998 laid the groundwork for the Bushmaster PMV that’s in service now with the Australian Defence Force and multiple other nations, including the Netherlands, Japan, UK and Ukraine.
Manufacturing uses Bisalloy steel from Ununderra, near Wollongong, NSW, with the Bisalloy Steel Group also supplying the Royal Australian Navy.
The Bushmaster’s original production contract specified about 70 per cent Australian industry involvement, with a 2004 Australian National Audit Office review reporting 68 per cent was being achieved at the time.
To date, 1400 Bushmasters have been manufactured at Thales’ Bendigo facility, with Thales confirming a new Bushmaster rolls off the production line every three days.
Designed primarily as an infantry mobility vehicle, it can be configured for multiple uses, including ambulance duties, and has been used in monitoring and recovery operations as part of defence force aid to the civil community, such as flood-affected Lismore, NSW during tropical cyclone Alfred in 2025.
Latest 5:6 variants come in single and dual-cab builds equipped with a tray.
As a PMV, the Bushmaster is regarded as one of the most successful military vehicles in service today because of its armoured steel hull that deflects explosive blasts away from the troops inside. The design reflects the evolution of blast-protected vehicles developed in the mid-to-late 20th century, including South Africa’s Mamba, which entered service in the early 1990s.
Significantly, while Australian soldiers have been injured inside Bushmasters, the Australian War Memorial notes no Australian has died in more than 30 serious blasts. These include the one involving Echo 21 Alpha, nicknamed Debbie — and on display in its recently opened Anzac Hall — that triggered an improvised explosive device with its front right wheel in a dry river bed while on a routine resupply run near Eshaqzi, in the Deh Rawud district of Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan, on July 10, 2012. All six crew members survived, though two, including the driver, were seriously injured and medically evacuated.
Bushmaster 5.6 Ulitity
+ Kerb weight: 11,500kg (with tray)
+ Gross vehicle mass: 17,200kg
+ Engine: Caterpillar 3126E six-cylinder turbo-diesel
+ Outputs: 224kW @ 2200rpm and 1166Nm @ 1440rpm
+ Transmission: ZF Ecomat 6-speed automatic
+ Tyres: Michelin 395/85 R20 with bead locks and 3-piece run flats
+ Maximum speed: 100km/h
+ Maximum road range: Up to 800km
+ Fording depth: 1.5m
Bladehaul
The Bladehaul is an autonomous, extra-large uncrewed ground vehicle (XL-UGV) developed by Thales Australia and NSW-based 3ME Technology, which specialises in electric drive systems for defence, mining and maritime operations.
It’s fully driverless and can be operated remotely using handheld and tele-remote, as well as semi-autonomously via waypoints and lead-follow functions.
The set-up uses a series-hybrid propulsion system comprising a four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine producing 122kW of continuous mechanical power at 1800rpm and an electric generator motor rated at 92kW of output. A separate electric taction motor provides 340kW of continuous power and 440kW of peak power, with 2450Nm of peak torque.
3ME Technology’s BladeVolt system uses a fully immersed 110kWh nickel manganese cobalt battery for energy storage.
The battery can be charged by the diesel generator or via an onboard 22kW charger connected to a three-phase AC outlet.
Thales Australia says the vehicle is designed to support a range of logistics missions and containerised cargo, carrying up to 10-tonne payloads and 6-metre containers — more than any existing or planned Australian UGV.
In addition, it can function as a standalone generator in remote locations, with both on-board and off-board power capability, and serve as a mobile power source for field hospitals and communication systems, as well as a platform for mounting, operating and autonomously transporting a variety of technologies in reconnaissance, surveillance and other critical tasks.
“This is a clear example of Australian innovation delivering Australian capability,” said Thales Australia and New Zealand CEO Jeff Connolly.
“By leveraging the trusted Bushmaster platform and integrating advanced autonomous and power systems developed locally, together we are delivering a highly capable uncrewed ground vehicle to meet the diverse and evolving needs of our defence force.”
Bladehaul XL-UGV
+ Gross vehicle mass: 20,000kg
+ Payload: 10,000kg
+ Engine: Four-cylinder turbo-diesel
+ Traction battery: BladeVolt 110kWh NMC, fully immersed
+ Tyres: Michelin 395/85 R20 with bead locks
+ Top speed (capability/limited): 80km/h, 60km/h
+ Combined range: 600km
+ Battery-only range: 50-plus km
+ Fording depth: 760mm
What does it take?
It was a packed three days at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre, with security costing $11.5 million for the biennial international expo showcasing weapons, military vehicles and technology. It was held in Melbourne in 2024.
Q: How much of the design, engineering and integration of the three vehicles coming out of Bendigo is undertaken in Australia?
A: All of it. Thales Australia has a workforce of about 4500 across various sites. There are about 200 (people) onsite in Bendigo. We run all sorts of trades, but what is unique about Bendigo, as well, is the fabrication. There isn’t anywhere in the country outside of the shipbuilding program that you can do that heavy fabrication.
Q: Has the design of the Bushmaster on display in the Australian War Memorial been modified for additional blast protection?
A: The amount of engineering that goes into a vehicle to protect it from that level of blast is significant. But for the past 25 years we were worried about threats that emanated largely from the ground, roadside bombs, IEDs. We’ve all seen the shock when a Bushmaster is hit by a blast, the cloud of dust, and somehow folk have survived because of the hull. The threat nowadays is coming from above, not below, so we’ve done a range of things on the new vehicle (going into production from January 2027) to protect against that threat. You obviously appreciate I may not wish to say what that is.
Q: What are the biggest challenges in manufacturing a highly specialised vehicle like the Bushmaster in Australia?
A: What you need, fundamentally, and what we are so privileged to have, is not just a workforce that is highly skilled, but is experienced in the type of production we do. Many places can weld, but when you are welding to withstand a blast, the welding takes on a different dimension. Some people (in our workforce) are generational, maybe their parents worked at the Ordnance Factory. Looking back as we were building Bushmaster and starting Hawkei (development begain in 2008), Bendigo was doing that in the context of an auto industry ecosystem, especially in Victoria because you didn’t have just the big companies, you had that huge supply chain: brakes, engines, auto electrical. We’re now building vehicles as the only large vehicle manufacturer; we don’t have that automotive ecosystem around us so we’ve had to bring a lot of it in-house.
Q: How competitive is manufacturing cost in Australia?
A: Well, you can’t put a price on protection. I say that as someone who spent a lot of my time in the army in a Bushmaster. What made the Bushmaster unique for the past two decades was the level of protection that it offered. That’s not going to change. But there’s still nothing like it in terms of mobility. You either have relatively light vehicles that can go places but they can’t carry the weight . . . if you think how much a radar might weigh or a missile . . . a light vehicle can’t carry these things. So maybe you put them on a truck, but a truck is confined to a road, and trucks moving along roads, unfortunately, are targetable because they’re predictable. So if you can’t put it on a light vehicle or a truck, you have to put it on a tracked vehicle, but tracked vehicles cost an awful lot of money and are even heavier.
