Technology

The dump truck, at 45 tons, ascends the 13-percent grade and takes on 65 tons of ore. With more than double the weight going back down the hill, the beast's regenerative braking system recaptures more than enough energy to refill the charge the eDumper used going up.

Amateurs.

The 1963 Černý Důl – Kunčice nad Labem aerial ropeway is over 8 km (5 mi) long, over 30 m high in places and carries 135 tons of limestone every hour from a quarry to the nearest train station. Its 120kW 3-phase synchronous motor requires power for a few minutes at the start and end of each day when most of the 800kg-capacity trolleys are empty, and spends most of the shift generating mains electricity and acting as a speed governor. Unlike the EV, it is fully autonomous most of the way, only 5 people are required to operate it. (Loading, unloading and timed dispatching is automatic, arriving/leaving carts just need to be checked; a safety latch has to be manually dis/engaged on trolleys passing the check.) The quarry will continue operation as long as it pays off, then the ropeway will be scrapped (projected 2033). A dude illegally rode the way up on it somewhat recently. He could have fallen to his death if he pulled the latch.

EV never has to be recharged... Because it recharges on the way downhill.

"World's largest EV never has to be plugged in" is sufficiently click-baity without being so dumbly self contradicting

"World's largest EV"

Blatantly untrue. Larger EVs have been in use for more than a century at this point in the form of EMU trains.

Wow what a great use case.

Click bait that actually makes me glad I clicked???

You just toss it when the battery dies and get a new one.

I cannot avoid to be pedantic on this, it is recharged during half the trip… it just does not require plug-like recharging

Till elon finds out that if he manages to cover the sun, he can charge us on sunscription

well that was unexpected

I'm curious if the desgin team knew about it in advance

"EDumper" is a great name for a dump truck.

yes it does. just going by the numbers posted operating in the space it does results in a net loss of12% battery each trip.

Very cool! It's a pretty specialized use case, but still awesome to see.

I read the story.

I saw the comments on the story

I laughed at the pedantic slapfights happening in the comments.

I came here to comment on the neat story and poke fun at the silliness, to find the same pedantic slapfights here.

Sigh.

2017

At 50 tons and 700 kilowatt-hours, this truck is the biggest EV in the world Each round trip will generate 10kWh of spare electricity for the grid.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/09/this-cement-quarry-dump-truck-will-be-the-worlds-biggest-electric-vehicle/

Cool EV bruh, but can the horn make a fart noise?

I hope OpenTTD devs consider adding gravity-based electric transportation of heavy loads as an option