While the major Chinese wide body truck OEMs are focused on those models today up to around the 100 ton (91 t) class, they also recognise that there are elements of the design strategy that can be moved into the rigid mining truck arena.
On November 6, Shaanxi Tonly Heavy Industry’s first TED136 electric drive rigid mining truck rolled off the production line at its factory in Xianyang, near Xi’an and entered the testing and trial stage. It marks a key step for Tonly in larger mining trucks.
It said that relying on its many years of mining truck and mine haulage experience, it was responding to the core needs of large open-pit mines for efficiency, safety and green credentials and operational independence and had therefore created this strategic product.
It added that the new model shows that it has broken through any technical barriers of producing large-tonnage electric transmission rigid mining trucks, adding further to the localisation of China’s mining equipment industry supply chain.
It was 20 years ago that Tonly pioneered the mining industry’s first off-highway wide-body dump truck, totally changing the traditional mine transportation mode in China – a trend that has since continued worldwide. Since then, from diesel vehicles through to the latest new energy unmanned vehicles, it now supplies trucks with payloads from tens of tons to 120 tons.
This broad product matrix has contributed to improvements in market demand and technology iteration, plus its market share – to date it has provided more than 60,000 trucks to mines in more than 50 countries around the world.
It estimates its market share in new energy mining trucks at over 50% for battery electric and hybrid models – and says its products are renowned for their durability, economy, and adaptability to harsh conditions. On the hybrid side, the TLDH180 hybrid mining truck is another recent addition – with a 120 ton payload and advanced hybrid powertrain. Tonly delivered one of the first ever fleets of hybrid trucks to South America in 2024/2025 – 62 TLH135 units for Shougang’s Marcona iron ore mine in Peru; followed by some of the first battery trucks – 50 DTE145 91 t class units for Zijin Mining’s La Arena copper-gold mine. Also in battery trucks – recent deliveries include a new fleet of TLE120 trucks to CMOC’s Luoyang Molybdenum operations. Together with AHS partner EACON it also recently released the EQ100E, a distributed drive, all battery electric, autonomous and cabless mining truck.
It is also one of the Chinese OEMs involved in some of the world’s largest overseas mining projects. Along with XCMG it is one of the two major suppliers of mining equipment to the Simandou iron ore mining complex in Guinea – including 40 of its TL885A diesel wide body trucks and 41 DTE145 all electric wide body trucks.
XCMG has supplied a fleet of 30 XDE240 230 t class diesel-electric drive mining trucks to Rio Tinto’s (SimFer) mining blocks at Simandou as well as over 30 70 t class XGE105 battery mining trucks to the WCS managed blocks.
Simandou is being co-developed by the Government of the Republic of Guinea, SimFer and Winning Consortium Simandou (WCS). Rio Tinto SimFer is developing the southern part of the deposit (Simandou Blocks 3 & 4), while WCS is developing the northern part (Simandou Blocks 1 & 2).
Also concerning Rio Tinto, SPIC-Qiyuan Green Power Technology is trialling battery-swap electric haul truck technology at the Oyu Tolgoi copper mine and has deployed eight Tonly 91 t DTE145 trucks and a battery swapping station at the operations in Mongolia, working together with the global miner to make over 500 design adjustments to ensure the trucks are aligned with Rio Tinto’s requirements.
