Imagine an electric vehicle that requires no recharging like, ever. You may think it sounds like fantasy, but here we are, a mining dump truck that literally requires no recharging. Meet the eDumper from Kuhn Schweiz AG. It is a mining truck from Komatsu, but it is not the recent electric drive trucks offered by the Japanese heavy machinery manufacturer. It was an electric conversion performed by Swiss Kuhn Schweiz AG.

Originally a diesel-powered Komatsu HB 605-7, Kuhn Schweiz fitted the 45-ton dump truck with a 9,000 lbs, 600 kWh battery pack from Lithium Storage, along with electric motors and control systems. In the process, Kuhn Schweiz has created one of the world’s largest electric-powered dump truck. Just how big, you ask? It stretches 30 feet long and 14 feet wide, and it is so tall, towering at 14 feet, it that would require the operator to climb a set of stairs to get into his/her ‘office’. And the tires each measures 6 feet in diameter.

eMining AG Electric Dump Truck

Given the immense size, you must be thinking “how such as big-ass truck is able to keep going without recharging?” Well, the magic lies in the nature of its work. You see, as the truck descends from the top of a quarry, fully loaded with 65-ton of payload, the electricity generated by the regenerative braking is more enough to power the vehicle for the next ascend. Pretty impressive, eh?

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Well, it certainly is. But there’s just one major caveat. While this super size electric vehicle itself is no doubt zero-emission, what it is serving is far from being eco-friendly. This particular eDumper is serving Swiss cement company Ciments Viger SA’s quarry at Biel, Switzerland where it is responsible for transporting materials required for cement production. Herein lies the problem.

According to a report, cement production is responsible for around 8 percent of all global carbon emissions. Now you see the problem there? Decarbonizing the fleet that does the legwork is merely making a dent in the issue as whole. Anyways, we are not here to get green-political.

We are thinking more in the line of how to make regenerative braking could be more efficient on regular EVs so that people in San Francisco can take advantage of the crazy slopes they have there. Just throwing it out there. Keep going for a couple of videos of the eMining AG Electric Dump Truck.

Images: eMining AG/Andreas Sutter.

Source: CleanTechnica.

Published by Mike

Avid tech enthusiast, gadget lover, marketing critic and most importantly, love to reason and talk.