On December 28, a batch delivery ceremony of Yutong YTK90E all electric autonomous wide body mining trucks was held in Zoucheng, Shandong Province in eastern China. The mining trucks were jointly developed by Yutong Mining Equipment and autonomous driving technology company EACON, and will be put into use at a limestone mining project of Shandong Honghe Baili Mining and form part of a larger fleet of 40 units that will be delivered by the end of 2023.
These mining trucks have a load capacity of 60 tons, can climb on a uphill slope of up to 40% gradient, and use lithium-iron-phosphate batteries with a storage capacity of 350 kWh. While this is the first deployment of electric mining trucks with EACON technology, diesel autonomous-driving mining trucks using EACON systems have already been used in two large surface coal mines in Xinjiang Province with a capacity of over 35 Mt/y.
EACON says it has significant on-site experience, and developed “quantifiable standardised requirements regarding sensors and computing hardware, consistency of drive-by-wire control system, communication network and haul road construction schemes and mine site safety plans, and sought extensive cooperation with excellent mining equipment manufacturers, so as to foster a larger scale of implementation for autonomous mining trucks.”
The strategic cooperation between EACON and Yutong Mining Equipment it says represents an important step towards sustainable, intelligent and autonomous haulage in mining. Yu Xiangfeng, Deputy General Manager of Shandong Honghe Baili Mining Co Ltd, Ke Sheng, General Manager of Yanzhou Sinoma Construction Co Ltd, Yu Zhiqiang, General Manager of Yutong Mining Equipment, Zhang Lei, Chairman of Easy Control Intelligent Driving, attended the event and delivered speeches.
The project in Shandong Honghe Baili Mining Fushan Mine, where contracting services are provided by Yanzhou Sinoma Construction, also involved China Mobile to deliver 5G full network coverage. After the delivery of all 40 pure electric vehicles, the country’s largest pure electric driverless transportation smart mine will be built, which will have the exemplary effect of benchmark scenarios.
In recent years, China’s mining industry has been moving towards zero emissions mining fleet development to meet the general requirements of the national double-carbon strategy, which aims to which is to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. As such the pure electric mine wide body truck is an important part of the future development of low-carbon mines.
Yutong Mining Equipment was one of the first OEMs to focus principally on the research and development and sales of wide body mining vehicles. Yutong Mining Equipment successfully developed a pure electric wide body mining truck and put it on the market in batches, and has formed a deep cooperation with Easy Control Intelligent Driving (EACON) with obvious complementary advantages.
Honghe Baili Mining Deputy General Manager Yu Xiangfeng stressed: “Honghe Baili Mining has been actively responding to the national call for double carbon and choosing pure electric driverless equipment construction. This fleet combines the advantages of pure electric and driverless technology for safety, environmental protection, energy saving and intelligence. We hope to make unremitting efforts in these aspects. We will promote the construction of green smart mines and make new contributions to construction in beautiful Zoucheng.”
Yu Zhiqiang, General Manager of Yutong Mining Equipment: “Relying on the group’s strong new energy resources technology, innovation and intelligent manufacturing capabilities, Yutong Mining Equipment has created high availability, high reliability, pure electric products and has also successfully won the trust of customers…we will be able to work together to achieve the goal of zero carbon in the Honghe Baili mining area.”
Zhang Lei, Chairman of EACON, said: “In the vision of becoming a world-class mine driverless company, we need more partners to work together and win. The successful cooperation of the parties will drive more upstream and downstream enterprises to participate in the grand blueprint of intelligent and unmanned mines, and create inexhaustible power for the intelligent and low-carbon construction of mines under the background of the national double carbon strategy.”