China has launched the World’s largest fleet of driverless electric mining trucks.
At a coal mine in north-eastern Mongolia, 100 electric mining trucks are working non-stop. They are smart, self-guided, and part of a bold shift, in heavy industrial duty.
At first glance, it looks like just another busy day at the coal mine. The trucks have no driver, no steering wheel, not even a cabin.
They can swap batteries under six minutes and haul 90 tons for 60 kilometers on a single, full charge.
Developed by energy giant Huaneng Group, the fleet is powered entirely by clean energy and managed by what the company calls the world’s first fully unmanned smart dispatch system.
Tech giant, Huawei provides the technological backbone—developing an end-to-end solution from chip to cloud. Using its advanced 5G-A network, the system links every vehicle to a centralized AI-powered dispatch platform.
China Huaneng Group, which operates the mine, said the vehicles are industry-leading by having the fastest operating speed of 50 kilometers per hour, and being able to carry a load of 90 metric tons per truck and operate continually in freezing-40 C.
Liu Qiang, deputy director of the intelligent mine construction office of the mine, said that these all-electric mining trucks are expected to make mining safer, more environmentally friendly and more efficient in winter, when the local temperature can drop below-40 C.
In extremely cold weather, frost on the glass of the mining truck’s cabs used to plague winter operations in mining areas. With the assistance of lidar, millimeterwave radar, cameras and AI algorithms, these unmanned mining trucks can stably perceive their surroundings in low-light, low-visibility conditions such as snow, sandstorms and at night, said Liu.
Moreover, each mining truck is equipped with a 564 kilowatt-hour lithium iron phosphate battery pack. Notably, a single battery swap takes less than six minutes.
China Huaneng plans to gradually expand the scale of unmanned mining trucks at the Yimin mine to 300-500 units and replicate the project in other mining areas such as the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
