Call that a dump truck?

Technology company Siemens was given a mammoth task when it was commissioned by Belarus truck-maker BelAZ to develop the drive system for a new electric dump truck.

This was to be no ordinary dump truck. The brief from BelAZ was to develop the biggest truck in the world. And it had to be capable of toting a payload 25 per cent greater than anything currently in operation.

This meant a maximum payload of around 450 tonnes – or the equivalent of a fully-loaded A380 Airbus commercial aircraft.

Siemens set to work developing a drivetrain that included two 16-cylinder diesel engines with a total output of approximately 1700kW, each driving a generator sending electricity to an all-wheel drive system utilising four 1200kW electric motors.

The idea, in addition to providing four-wheel drive traction (and four-wheel steering) via massive four-metre diameter tyres, was to build-in a fail-safe function that would allow the truck to drive back to the service centre in the event of failure in one of the electric motors.

Today, the BelAZ 75710 is at work the mines in the Kuzbass region of Russia. The world’s biggest dump truck is more than 20 metres long and almost 10 metres wide. It weighs 360 tonnes when empty, is capable of a 64km/h top speed and has a 20-metre turning circle.

Siemens supplies each truck with two traction generators, three blowers, a brake resistor unit and a control cabinet with two inverters.

A hint: Don’t try to out-bluff one of these if you spot it in peak-hour traffic...