eDumper: The World’s Largest Electric Truck

Just a few years ago, when people talked about electric vehicles, they usually meant either expensive luxury cars or tiny city commuters. Today, EV technology is expanding far beyond passenger transportation. Electric powertrains are now making their way into some of the biggest and heaviest machines on the planet—including massive mining trucks.

One of the most impressive examples is the eDumper, currently recognized as the world’s largest fully electric dump truck.

Built by Swiss company Kuhn Schweiz, the eDumper is an enormous industrial vehicle that, according to its engineers, doesn’t need traditional refueling—or even regular charging in the usual sense.

The truck weighs about 99,000 pounds (45 metric tons) and can carry up to 143,000 pounds (65 metric tons) of material. That makes it the largest electric-powered truck operating today.

For its platform, engineers used the Komatsu HB 605-7 dump truck and converted it into a fully electric machine. It was fitted with a huge 600-kWh lithium-ion battery pack weighing nearly 10,000 pounds (4.5 metric tons).

That battery is powerful enough to supply energy for about six standard passenger EVs.

But the most interesting part of the eDumper is how it generates much of its own electricity.

When the truck travels downhill on a 13-degree slope while fully loaded with 143,000 pounds of rock, its regenerative braking system activates. Instead of relying mainly on traditional brakes, the electric motor switches into generator mode, converting braking energy into electricity and sending it back to the battery.

This process produces enough stored energy for the empty truck to drive back uphill along the same route.

The truck makes around 20 trips per day, and under this operating cycle, it can save between roughly 10,500 and 21,000 gallons of diesel fuel annually.

More importantly, it proves that electric drivetrains are fully capable of handling even the toughest heavy-duty industrial jobs—something many people once thought was impossible.