Just a month after China’s surface truck mining automation technology major TAGE Idriver announced a deal with China’s leading mining truck OEM Inner Mongolia North Hauler (NHL), the other leading unmanned surface mining equipment tech player VIPioneers (officially known as Qingdao Huituo Intelligent Machine or Huituo and also using the brand WAYTOUS) has signed a deal of its own with the other big domestic mining truck manufacturer Xiangtan Electric Manufacturing Co (XEMC). XEMC is one of China’s leading electric drive technology and electric motor suppliers to a range of industries and in mining is a key supplier of electric locomotives for underground projects.
The statement said that on May 13, a “strategic cooperation” relationship was established between VIPioneers and XEMC which will help both parties to “give full play to their respective technological and market advantages. The two parties will jointly develop in the direction of products such as mining trucks and unmanned locomotives, carry out national-level project cooperation, jointly create smart product demonstration projects, promote mass production and the operation of unmanned mining vehicles, and make contributions to the development of unmanned mining areas in China.
Chen Long, CEO of Huituo (VIPioneers) said: In recent years, Huituo has continued to invest in the platformisation and openness of unmanned solutions for smart mines, enabling Huituo to quickly connect mining equipment manufacturers and system integration, and promote the intelligence of the entire industrial ecology. XEMC is a leading enterprise in China’s mining electric wheel dump trucks, and has advanced technology and experience in the research and development and manufacturing of mining transportation equipment. The strategic cooperation between Huituo and XEMC will help the two sides complement each other’s advantages, jointly promote the improvement and market expansion of unmanned driving technology products, help the intelligent transformation and upgrading of equipment in China’s mining areas, and build a harmonious modernisation of people and nature.”
Jin Bin, General Manager of XEMC, said: “XEMC has long been committed to the research and development and manufacturing of mine transportation equipment. It is the earliest professional manufacturer of non-highway electric drive dump trucks and industrial and mining traction motor vehicles in China. With the speeding up of the development of national mine intelligence, traditional product technology upgrades, and the application of unmanned driving technologies are urgent problems that companies need to solve. As the leading intelligent mine unmanned solution provider in China, Huituo has obvious technical advantages and mature solutions. The cooperation between the two parties will provide comprehensive solutions and mature and reliable products for the intelligent products of China’s mine transportation equipment, and jointly promote the overall technical level of the national mine intelligent equipment.”
Huituo/VIPioneers claims to be China’s largest mining area unmanned solution provider (though TAGE Idriver also makes that claim), and says it has rich project experience and technical advantages in the mining area unmanned field. It says: “Supported by the world’s first parallel driving technology, Huituo has developed a cloud-based intelligent dispatching and management system, a mining vehicle unmanned driving system, an excavator cooperative operation management system, an unmanned transportation simulation system, a remote driving system, and V2X vehicle-road collaboration. The core technology products represented by the perception system have created the leading domestic unmanned full-stack solution for the mine, which has been applied to many open-pit mines in China.”
XEMC is a leading domestic electric mining dump truck OEM, with 108 t, 136 t, 154 t, 220 t, 300 t and 330 t product series with completely independent intellectual property rights. XEMC says it is also the company with the largest sales volume, and the most complete varieties and specifications in the domestic electric locomotive market. It is a major manufacturer of domestic DC and AC electric locomotives offering 80 t, 100 t, 150 t, 200 t and 224 t large-scale industrial and mining electric locomotives as well as offering custom designs to meet customer demand.