MINING TRUCKS
fuel consumption reduction in a heavy way in the right applications – and how we can really think differently about helping a mine site adopt a solution like this in a much more high velocity way, and managing that risk.” He said Cat had gotten to the point where it can deploy the infrastructure in a couple of days time:“ The planning leading up to that obviously is a big lift and a lot of collaboration goes into that, as well as all the aspects of site change management.”
Caterpillar wants it to be agile and adaptable, that is set up in a way that you can run it with existing diesel electric fleets and have that infrastructure in place for the future as you move along the electrification adoption curve into battery electric fleets; but also have compatibility across all your truck sizes and different powertrain topologies where the DET can remain a common, constant factor.
So far DET has been publicly stated as being planned for installation at BHP Escondida and Codelco’ s Radomiro Tomic copper operations in Chile.
Komatsu gathers PADT hours and prepares PABT for wider testing
Komatsu’ s journey with its power agnostic mining truck program continues too. To give some background, the EVX was introduced as a proof of concept back at MINExpo 2021 and was based on the 280 short ton 860E- then came the Power Agnostic Diesel Truck( PADT), which is based on the 320 short ton 930E and was launched at MINExpo 2024.
This is the truck that saw first operation at Boliden Aitik copper mine in Sweden – during The Electric Mine 2026 in early May, Anthony Cook, Komatsu Vice President, Sales & Marketing of Surface Haulage presented with Rikard Maki, Boliden Head of Electrification and Automation. Cook said the truck at Aitik had done about 4,500 hours with a second PADT operating at a site in Chile having around 4,000 hours. Then there are two more PADTs in the US- one at Asarco’ s Mission copper mine with 3,000 hours and another operating at AZPG undergoing structural testing. Cook:“ So we have a fleet of four, all going very well- we’ ve basically moved to a 2,600 V wheel motor- that’ s probably the biggest change.” Then Komatsu has also built the first Power Agnostic Battery Truck( PABT), also based on the 930E, which is still at AZPG but is showing impressive results- the first factory built test units of the PABT are expected to go out to customers in 2028 but with conversions of the existing PADT units to battery happening before that at Aitik and other sites, possibly as soon as before end-2026.
At Aitik, trolley was put in back in 2018 with installation on the waste rock ramp with the plan at one point to use all 14 313 t class Caterpillar 795 trucks on it. It was initially 700 m with one substation which was fairly straightforward without any major curves and a wide ramp width – it worked really well but a later 3 km extension went down into the pit itself including additional substations. At this point some problems arose – the trolley ramp was now close to some blasting areas, so there were a lot of narrower ramp sections which made operations more difficult. There were also some issues with this narrower road as trolley truck operators were not connecting correctly to the line with the pantograph which in some cases caused damage.
Trolley operations were also disrupted by a rockfall in the haul road requiring a section of the extension to be removed – initially it was going to be rebuilt but then the mine plans changed and it was decided that the whole extension would be taken out, and there are now no immediate plans to reinstate it. The 700 m initial trolley section that is still there, however, is still proving useful to be able to test the Komatsu Power Agnostic Dump Truck( PADT) under trolley – Boliden was the first mining company in the world to get this truck – quite significant given that it was developed and constructed in the USA.
Maki said that the PADT had completed almost 500 runs on the Aitik trolley line but the panto kit was removed as the truck moved to a different production area of the mine- but these trolley runs brought the performance verification Boliden was looking for.
Moving to next gen dynamic charging, and Komatsu and ABB are preparing to extend their offering beyond trolley-assist systems, with Lucas van Latum and Nic Beutler confirming at The Electric Mine 2026 in Lisbon, that a“ side arm” system was being worked on to showcase at the Komatsu-owned Arizona Proving Grounds( AZPG) in the US.
Dynamic energy transfer solutions are already helping mines“ decarbonise today” while ABB and Komatsu are“ preparing for the future” as one of the conference slides from van Latum and Beutler’ s talk,‘ Partnership in practice: Orchestrating the mine grid-to-wheel,’ read. van Latum, Product Director of Energy Transfer and Software Systems for Komatsu Mining, said during the event:“ We all know it’ s better to transfer energy while the machine is moving rather than stationary. This [ solution ] is not going to be appropriate in every single case; we believe you have to have a mix of stationary and dynamic [ energy transfer ].”
While trolley assist has proven successes, this new dynamic energy transfer system solution is an alternative in cases where traditional catenary systems present challenges.
The side rail system that the companies are jointly working on is likely to be showcased in an installation at AZPG, with pilots expected to take place over the next few years. Broadly speaking, Komatsu will coordinate the mobile equipment side of the project, with ABB providing the fixed infrastructure.
Beutler, Product Manager, Dynamic Energy Transfer, Mining & Materials at ABB, said:“ Right now, we are working on a joint system where we are going up to 40 MW within one galvanic section. This allows for substantial trucks to be connected to the galvanic section itself.”
He added:“ The focus on this is really the pre-assembled, pre-configured system that is easily deployable on site and makes the uptime, or the deployability, of the system even better.”
The AZPG installation will come on top of a trolley system that includes a curved section and ramp at the site, plus a 6.5 MW stationary charging area that offers a manual and automated megawatt charging system, plus a Quick Charging Connector.
Liebherr’ s T 264 Battery Electric nears Australia launch
At Liebherr’ s mining equipment proving grounds in Virginia, near its Newport News manufacturing site, a major milestone was recently reached when a Liebherr T 264 240 t class mining truck was successfully integrated with the Fortescue Zero production series battery electric power system.
Warren Harris, Director Group Project Delivery at Fortescue stated:“ Getting a 240-tonne battery electric truck ready for the Pilbara is one of the toughest challenges we’ ve taken on. But this integration proves the technology is here, and it’ s getting closer to operations.”
The next stage will be doing the same integration through conversion of one of the 100 + Liebherr T 264 diesel electric trucks already deployed with Fortescue in Australia, which is expected in the next few months. Fortescue has stated that it expects to have a battery electric mining truck running by the end of the year.
The image shared of the truck in Virginia shows a trolley unit with pantographs fitted, allowing it to partly charge using Liebherr’ s testing area trolley line. At Fortescue’ s operation, it is assumed the truck will use the 6 MW charger developed by Fortescue Zero, which it has said is capable of charging this class of truck in 30 minutes and remains the largest DC charger in the market for output power and voltage.
The electric fleet ecosystem also includes Fortescue Zero’ s Elysia Battery Intelligence systems and software, both embedded and
46 International Mining | JULY 2026