MINING ENGINES
At the end of 2024, a fleet of 62, 90-t class Shaanxi Tonly Heavy Industries TLH135 hybrid wide body mining trucks left China’ s Zhangjiagang Port bound for Chancay Port, in Peru, and onwards to the Shougang Hierro-owned Marcona iron ore mine
is even before you factor in the emissions reduction capability.
The conversion process will see Switch and the HME rebuilder take the existing transmission out of the truck – a new Cat 785 Water Cart – remove the transfer case off the front of this transmission, bolt in a modified transmission with a brand new transfer case and put that“ assembly” back in the truck. That transfer case includes an extended set of gears that allow Switch to hang two 540 kW motors off it.
O’ Hanlon added:“ There is a very sensible rationale for putting so much power into the truck … you need a lot of power to capture a lot of braking energy … The system can capture 86 % of that braking effort.”
Between the tyres on one side of the vehicle is a 113-kWh battery pack powered by XNO ® battery chemistry. This battery pack is provided by niobium battery anode materials provider Echion Technologies, with Benjamin Ting, CCO of Echion Technologies, telling The Electric Mine 2025 delegates:“ This is the best battery suited to a hybrid haul truck application.”
Jan Haak, Managing Director and Chief Revenue Officer of Switch Technologies, fleshed out this statement by explaining that the niobium-based battery chemistry of XNO offered a 40 % reduction in volume and a 30 % reduction in“ mass” relative to the best available LTO option.
“ It is heavy hybrid applications that XNO is really suited to,” he added.
The truck in question is expected to only require small“ opportunity charging” windows depending on the haul cycle, with O’ Hanlon telling IM previously that it was designed to be“ purely regenerative”.
Switch plans to, once again, utilise the Australian Automation and Robotics Precinct( AARP) just outside of Perth, to test out the truck ahead of the converted 785 going to Pilgangoora. The AARP also acted as a testbed for the Toyota Land Cruiser 79 Series vehicle that has been modified into a plug-in hybrid configuration with a 24-kWh battery.
The truck will then progress to PLS’ Pilgangoora site in the Pilbara for a trial period. O’ Hanlon was confident that, if the trial was successful, there would be an opportunity to install follow-on retrofits at mine sites, which could be completed in a matter of weeks.
With commercial deployments of the retrofit truck solution expected from April 2026, Haak and O’ Hanlon are already seeing growth opportunities beyond the 785 size class.
Haak said:“ The transfer case of the 785 is identical to the 789, so there is an obvious opportunity there. We also have customers asking about 793s, and other OEMs are in contact too.”
South America’ s largest hybrid fleet
At the end of December 2024, a fleet of 62 units of 90-t class Shaanxi Tonly Heavy Industries TLH135 hybrid wide body mining trucks left China’ s Zhangjiagang Port bound for Chancay Port, in Peru, and onwards to the Shougang Hierro-owned Marcona iron ore mine, marking, the companies said, an important development in the decarbonisation journey of Peru’ s mining sector.
The trucks were supplied via ZAMine Peru, an authorised distributor for Tonly Heavy Industries for Peru, as well as the authorised distributor of Hitachi Construction Machinery hydraulic shovels and dieselelectric mining trucks in the country.
The TLH135 is equipped with a core electric drive system consisting of dual 620 kW motors and a multi-gear AMT gearbox, together with a 400 kW generator and battery system, enabling the vehicle to accelerate quickly and provide a better climbing ability. The design was developed together with engine technology company Guangxi Yuchai and is known as the Yuchai K16-400kW intelligent hybrid system.
This works together with a Yuchai Mengqing YCK16 engine and Yuchai Xinlan high-efficiency intelligent range extender. Compared with similar diesel-only mining vehicles, Yuchai says the operating efficiency of the truck has increased by 10-15 %, while energy consumption has been reduced by 10-15 %. Tonly and Yuchai have now collaborated on several models, including the hybrid TLH135 and the allbattery electric DTH145, which is the battery swapping technology model that Tonly has supplied, together with SPIC Qiyuan, to operate at Rio Tinto’ s Oyu Tolgoi surface copper operations.
In terms of safety, conventional mechanical braking is combined with electric feedback braking to ensure driving safety. Full hydraulic steering plus an emergency steering system, Tonly says, ensure the reliability of the steering system, while the vehicle is also automation-ready with a drive by wire control system.
Tonly said the Shougang Hierro deal was important as a major entrance for its mining equipment into the South American market and is, again, indicative of the increasing demand for wide body trucks in mining as an alternative to rigid trucks for certain operations.
Guangxi Yuchai’ s hybrid hopes
There are several other China-originated examples of hybrid trucks springing up in the mining sector, too.
Iridium Molybdenum Technology, full name Xiamen Yimu lntelligence Technology Co Ltd, which uses the slogan EASYMOVE, has released the 115-ton-class EM165H: a truck equipped with a Guangxi Yuchai 16L YCK16775 engine and 108 kW lithium manganate battery.
Recently, the first 10 EM165H trucks were delivered to the Baishihu open-pit coal mine in Hami, Xinjiang, which is operated by Yiwu Guanghui Mining Co Ltd.
According to the Xinjiang Uygur
50 International Mining | OCTOBER 2025