We were in China last week and test drove the first RHD Deepway 4×2 in icy conditions in Hefei. These have a 10t tare with a 513kWh swappable battery.
We also visited Shantui for a look at their latest Weichai powered 17t grader.
Their 12t single drum roller with a Wechai Tier IIIA 170hp engine and Linde hydraulics is available now.
Shantui are famous for their dozers, this 71t SD60-C5 is powered by a 600hp Cummins and very well priced for it’s size
On to Xuzhou for a look at the XC988HEV hybrid 28t (Volvo L180 size) loader that uses only 15l of diesel per hour, even less if you charge it when you can.
We have special pricing of $418,000 + GST available for the first unit sold to New Zealand. That is excellent buying for such a capable 5m3 bucket loader.
The 59t XE9150EV is biggest pure EV wheel loader in the world, seen here in the video testing at the factory. It has a 1002kWh battery, the bucket is 8m3
https://youtu.be/omhorVUxf_8
We have one of these short radius 17t XE135CREV pure electric excavators in build for New Zealand. 5 hours runtime for one hour charging.
A short video is here:
https://youtu.be/dkpuEw4LaN0
These guys have all run over 30,000 hours in their XCMG EV wheel loaders. With an energy saving of around $19 per hour for the 20t XC968EV size, they are $570,000 ahead of a diesel loader owner in energy costs so far.
Plus, not $1 spent on the transmission for service or failure as XCMG doesn’t use transmissions on EV wheel loaders. All are on their original batteries.
XCMG trucks charging at 1.4MW in Linyi. That achieves 20% to 80% charged in 15 minutes using the latest 3.5C Sunwoda battery.
The Huawei 2400A charger uses two charging guns and coolant gun.
XCMG pure electric machines track building at the Swedish MX WSGP
The growth in heavy electric trucks sales in China is astonishing. The graph only shows to Q2 2025, but there were 45,000 delivered in December alone. XCMG still leads the market with 35,000 heavy BEV trucks sold in 2025.
The proportion of hydrogen FCEV truck sales is still declining.
The Qinghai solar farm cluster now delivers 17GW, for comparison New Zealand produces 11GW of electricity in total. The 600 square kilometer array also increases the soil quality and pasture growth on the Tibetan plateau by reducing evaporation.
Photo credit: Weimin Chu
An XE80N heading out to Natures Flame and the larger XE120W to McHale Hire, both located in Taupo.
From this month’s clever idea file how about a telescopic crane with stabilizing legs mounted on a forklift chassis.
