World's first sodium-ion haul truck deployed in China
Get the Energy newsletter
Daily energy & climate — solar, EVs, oil, the policy fights and tech bets shaping the transition. Free.
- Tonly Heavy Industry and Hina Battery co-developed the K120E electric haul truck, fitted with a 676 kWh "Haixing" sodium-ion battery and deployed at the Tangshan Sanyou limestone mines — billed as the world's first sodium-ion haul truck in operation.
- The Haixing battery delivers 165 Wh/kg energy density, an 8,000-cycle usable lifespan, and 0–100% charging in under minutes, while sidestepping the geopolitical supply-chain exposure that comes with lithium.
- Sodium-ion chemistry offers improved thermal stability versus lithium and superior cold-weather performance, making the trucks viable for northern Chinese mining regions where nighttime temperatures regularly hit –20°C in cities like Harbin and Shenyang.
- At those temperatures, conventional diesel engines struggle to start or run efficiently and lithium-ion range collapses, giving electric haul trucks a cold-weather operational edge that also protects operators from frostbite and hypothermia.
- Tonly separately announced it will deliver 800 autonomous TLE135 mining trucks to Xinjiang Hanxiang, signaling a broader push into electrified and autonomous heavy mining equipment.
- The article frames the trucks' combined value proposition — lower emissions, reduced diesel-noise hearing loss, superior safety, and autonomous all-weather performance — as a direct competitive threat to fossil-fuel-powered heavy equipment.
Why it matters: Chinese mining now has a cold-weather-capable electric haul truck that sidesteps lithium supply-chain risk entirely, thanks to sodium-ion's thermal stability and sub-zero resilience. That gives Tonly and Hina Battery a defensible wedge in the heavy-equipment segment where diesel still dominates and lithium loses range — meaning mines operating in Harbin/Shenyang-tier cold can decarbonize without importing lithium geopolitics.
