Hello, take a look here.... http://www.etftrucks.eu/ I would like to hear some opinions to these thinks!!! thanks!
They have been talked about a lot in this thread: Lots of hype for several years now, but no real trucks that anyone knows of.
Jerry's right on the money. They have talked the talk for a few years now, but have still yet to field a prototype to show whether they can walk the walk.
I am sorry, i hadn't noticed that it has been discussed.
Just don't think it'll be any good imho, guess I'm just used to the old style rigid haul trucks. What kind of tonnage are they gonna be hauling?
No worries. It has been a while since the topic came up. I would be interested in a working prototype to see if they come close to matching the hype.
There's an outfit called Kress already building trucks of a similar design for hauling coal. Never came across them myself but last I heard there were quite a few working in Canada. http://www.kresscarrier.com/coal.php
Don't be sorry, it was buried in another thread anyhow, so it would have been tough to find. Besides, this gives it another chance to be discussed Nige, the Kress trucks are really nothing at all like the trucks ETF is proposing. The Kress trucks are simply a belly dump, unitized coal hauler with a rear engine.
Actually, it was discussed here as well, with the participation of ETF's CEO.
Even if he were to have searched for European Truck Factory, would this have shown up? Back then, they were called Emirates Truck Factory. Seems a bit fishy to me that they have changed names, the CEO has not posted anything in over 3 years, and they STILL don't have a prototype out. Something just doesn't seem right with the whole project/company.
LOL! I hadn't even noticed the change. I followed the link, and recognized the pretty pictures as the ones from Emirates Truck Factory, and didn't bother reading any further. I guess if you're not going to actually build any, it doesn't matter where you don't actually build them... :beatsme
What struck me on their web site was that they were adamantly refusing to sell the trucks to any customer, instead insisting on a lease/rental deal where the customer had to commit to leasing the truck for the "whole life" of the vehicle (whatever that is), a deal that also included ETF being respoinsible for ALL maintenance of the machine. There was also an availablility guarantee that I personally thought they didn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of being able to achieve, especially with a new product. On the face of it there are a lot of thing to like about the ETF concept. I hate to call it a design because I haven't seen any designs yet, just a load of glossy computer-generated simulations. But deep down I've got the same nagging doubts as Alco.
the statements in the slide show dont add up, like when referring to the tyre cost of the ETF truck vs the haul truck they didn't use the full amount of tyres on the ETF concept (due the abilty to raise some wheels without a load) 15min tyre change, maybe on the outside but a can't see that on the inside.. The idea is great, but a concept will only get you so far the only way to go is to build a prototype and develop the product
These truck designs are merely visions, they have no outstanding benefits or advantages over current truck designs, that are actually working in mines - and I believe they will stay dreams and visions for a long time to come. This is a classic example of a person keeping himself comfortable in a CEO's position for years, on shareholders or public money, without producing a single example of a working prototype or actually making a sale of any kind. The design of the EFT truck is exceptionally complex, it's a high maintenance item, with an excessive amount of features that have no real application or measureable benefit. There are no cost-benefit studies produced by the designer to back up his claims, and no real "nuts & bolts" dissection of the vital working parts, that have to endure severe service conditions. This design, or proposed design poses no real threat to the current state-of-the-art electric drive dump trucks. Caterpillar have already experimented with 100 different designs, back in the late 1950's/early 1960's, and they didn't reach the design of current trucks, and the volume of current sales, by picking the wrong design. The only mistake that Cat have made is by sticking with mechanical drive in the bigger trucks for too long. Mechanical drive is far outclassed by electric drive in the larger sizes, because of weight savings and sheer efficiency. Cat were obliged to stick with this drivetrain design, once they went down that path - but they have long known that electric drive was superior in the larger sizes, and sought to rectify that by buying an electric truck manufacturer. The fiasco of the failed Terex takeover in the early 2000's was a wrench in Cats wheelspokes that they didn't need - but the takeover of Bucyrus has seen them back on track, to where they originally wanted to be, 10 or 12 years ago. That track sees Cat (or one of its subsidiaries) producing electric dump trucks in the larger sizes as their major direction, with mechanical drive being the forte of the smaller range.
As I like to deal in facts I thought I would email the company and ask them if they were for real or just a concept Here is the reply I got. "ETF Trucks are a reality! After 8.5 tears of development we are now building our f irst three trucks for shipment to Brazil". Best regards, Eddy de Jongh CEO ETF European Truck Factory GmbH
Hmmmm .. did he really mean to say 8.5 years? - or was that a Freudian slip?? I reckon there will probably be a lot more tears yet, before these trucks find any market. I've chatted with Eddy on ACME, he's a "dreams and schemes" man, and is pretty intelligent; but trying to garner sales from end-users - who buy long-established manufacturers products, that have the reputation, sales and service back-up, resale value, and proven designs that work - by offering them a totally radical new design, with maybe some slight advantages, is going to be a hard road to hoe. If you want to crack a market, you have to offer ideas that present immediate cost savings or obvious, measureable improvements in efficiency, to buyers .. and then you generally have to place your product into their fleet - gratis - while you show them these real advantages in a practical manner. Otherwise, you're asking the client to be your test bed, at their cost - and that isn't something, anyone wants to be.
The "Y" and the "T" being so close on the keyboard has undoubtedly caused more than one headache. A guy I worked for once had cards printed up and they came from the print shop reading "Serving the industry for 25 tears" That created a lot of jokes around the company.
I can't see much advantage in the single truck operation, as has been said the current dump truck set up has proven itself to be reliable. The haul train looks to be more advantageous insofar you only need one operator but a fault in one of the tucks will stop the entire train, that's why mining operations generally prefer the single truck operation. If you have a fleet of 20 dump trucks and you lose one, the operation can continue with a 5% loss of production, if you run 5 of these haul trains and you lose one you are 20% down on production. Perhaps they can find a market in the longer distance haul operation which are served currently by road trains http://www.bislimited.com/forms/innovation_dualpoweredpithauler.aspx Far as their self loader idea goes, by the looks of it the windrow has to be prepared by dozers and/or graders in order to be picked up. Can't see any advantage compared to traditional loading with an excavator/shovel or wheel loader.
I'm going to have to disagree on that one OzDozer. Cat has proven without a doubt that the mechanical drive is a very viable drive system on the large trucks. In fact, I can think of conditions where mechanical drive blows electric out of the water. Namely, soft conditions. Which is why Cat is not moving away from mechanical drive in their largest truck. Electric has it's areas where it shines, and so does mechanical drive.. No matter what the size, either has applications where they excel, and fail when compared to the other. Buying an electric truck manufacturer was never what Cat was ultimately after, it was always a part of the package they had to take, to get what they really wanted......shovels. There was no failed takeover in the early 2000s. It was a proposed technology swap, but Cat felt the truck line wasn't worth what Terex felt it was. The swap would have given the truck line to Cat, and Cat's failed shovel line to Terex with the rights to sell and support the Terex shovel line going to Cat. Yes, it was more complicated than that, but I'm trying to keep it simple and easier to understand. Like I said earlier, Cat won't be producing electric trucks in the large sizes as their major direction. They are going to offer both mechanical and electric, not because they feel electric is superior, but because they recognise that both have their applications they excel at, and they want to cover the whole market's needs. I ask you this, if electric is superior in the largest trucks, then why do the mechanical trucks outsell all of their competitors in the largest of the ultra class?
I agree, but I wonder if you could simply remove one unit that was down from a train and keep running with only four? I understand their idea for the road trains was to have the trucks meet up in the pit, and one driver run the train out of the pit, dump it, and return. I have to wonder, where do the other drivers go while the train is on it's journey to dump? That's a really good point. I know one of the selling points of HaulMax trucks is their high speed on long hauls. I wonder if there would be a niche in that segment they could exploit? The only thing I can see working there, is in mines run like the ones where they have surface miners preparing material and loading it out with loaders into conventional off road trucks. Maybe there would be an advantage to having these trains roll through and load themselves?
If you compared the (thieoretical) running costs of x4 of these units as a road train combo with say a HaulMax or PowerTrans road train combo the currently available options would be in front i would think There is another player on the scene shortly with a SE Asian built off-highway prime mover/haul truck concept which will be around half the price of a HaulMax which will be another option in the long haul market
Yeah, it's hard to say. I was just trying to throw an idea out there of something that might work. Until they actualy build a prototype and provide some operating costs, it's all just guesswork.
yeh, the old phrase "if you build it they will come" is pretty close to the mark, i was at a company this week who built a twin powered, double artic 60t underground haul truck to show up the CAT 50 tonner and pulled faster cycle times than the CAT will more dirt on its back, sells itself when you have hard data
Alco, it's called "market domination". Buyers buy Cat mechanical drive trucks, because they have the name, the reputation, the sales & service backup, and the resale values. However, electric-drive trucks are 30% lighter (no need for a humungous transmission, differential and final drives), and more fuel efficient because the engine runs at a relatively constant RPM. These features all translate through to improved efficiency in production. Read the sales speil on the new electric-drive D7E crawler, and you'll see a big hint as to where Cat are heading in future design.
You forgot to mention one other thing why people buy Cat trucks, because they are the dearest and there is a 2 year wait on them, sorry that was 2 things. The reality is the MD trucks have a much wider window with which they can work in, wet weather comes to mind, give the operator more confidence than electric drive, up untill recently have much better braking and the list goes on. If ED was the superior drive then why is it that Cat MD trucks outsell the cheaper, numerous OEM brands, even before the buyout? Simply the market place has agreed with what Cat think in that the MD is the superior drive technology.
We see the operations here buying Cat trucks, not because of the reasons you mention, but because they offer superior performance in almost every way. When you put an electric truck against a mechanical drive truck in soft conditions, the mechanical drive will outshine the electric drive in pretty much every aspect except fuel usage. But when you consider they can move the material when an electric just bogs down, fuel usage becomes a bit less of an issue. Either you get performance, and have to use a bit more fuel, or you don't move material, and save on the fuel. The fact that the 797s will continue on, when every electric truck is bogged right down, and hardly moving, says a lot to disprove your theory. Another issue, is with electric trucks, you have more support staff to employ, such as electricians, verses simply having mechanics to maintain them. Simply looking at the D7E as a direction of the company may be a bit of misdirection, it is turning out to be a bitter disappointment for Cat. For about the same money, you can buy a D8T, and charge more per hour for it. Most contractors are going that route, since it doesn't make financial sense to buy a machine that costs almost the same, and you can't charge as much for. They're having a real hard time selling the D7E here in the oil fields, a market that has been the largest user of the D7 historically.
I seem to recall one Mr R.G. LeTourneau made a bit of a mark in the earthmoving field with electrics and ED .. and in 1948 he never had the advantage of electronics, and had to use inefficient DC motors, rather than the much more efficient AC motors. LeTourneau now build the biggest loaders around, and they're ED, and there's substantial numbers working in the mines. LeTourneau now use SR (Switched Reluctance) motors that are even better than AC motors. Better and smarter electronic controls are leading to huge gains in electric drive efficiency. There will be big gains in the attractiveness of electric drive in the next few years, that will have MD drive struggling to compete. When you can increase your payload by 30 or 40 tonnes by eliminating transmission, diff, final drives, large amounts of lube oil, and all the associated requirements, that's a pretty powerful argument for ED. ED will win out when all components are fully sealed, and major components can be swapped out for exchange units that have been factory reconditioned. Caterpillars pricing on the D7E is probably set by bean counters trying to recoup development costs of the D7E against sales of the D7E. The pricing can be readjusted if they so choose by spreading the development costs.
One thing no-one has touched on regarding Cat mining trucks is the "one-stop shop" service backup system. You deal with one supplier (the local Cat dealer and/or Cat Global Mining) for every service requirement. In comparison if you're dealing with the Dark Side then as soon as it's anything engine-related it's "talk to the Cummins/MTU/Detroit dealer" because they don't want to know. Similarly customers are directed to GE if it's anything drive train related. Guess what..? Customers don't like that .......... Better and smarter electronic controls are leading to huge gains in electric drive efficiency. There will be big gains in the attractiveness of electric drive in the next few years, that will have MD drive struggling to compete . - Not surprising, when they were starting off from such a low efficiency in the first place. I'll believe it when it happens because despite 30+ years of ED power train development to date I still see no major evidence of it happening yet ..... "Large Numbers" of Letourneau loaders in the mines ..? Might be the case in Oz but I still think you'll find Cat outsells LeTourneau about 10:1 in large loader sales. RG had a lot of whacky ideas, some of which worked. For this he is remembered, and so should he be, the guy was an innovator. However just because it was one of RG's ideas doesn't necessarily make it flavour of the month. Most of the products coming out of what was once the LeTourneau plant in Texas right now are a proverbial POS.
Yair...probably a dumbass question but could one of you knowlegable blokes tell my why, if tyres are a limiting factor, the large haul trucks have remained as single drive rigids instead of instead of artics? I seem to remember that in the past some mines over here ran articulated belly dump coal haulers, why have they gone out of favour? Cheers.
Problem when you get to an artic is the hitch. Not many artics are around at the moment capable of carrying more than about 50 tons, so to go up by a factor of 7 (to a 350-ton class truck) is going to need some serious engineering investment, plus drive train issues to get the drive from the 2nd to the 3rd axle. Articulated belly dumps in the 200-300 ton class in the opencast coal industry are still common. With the a major shortage of large off-highway truck tyres (say 33.00R51 upwards) predicted to hit the industry later this year that is one area where ETF could have a distinct advantage by using a tyre much smaller than conventional large trucks. However they've got to build one first .....
Scrub Puller - In one word - manouverability. Artics aren't as nimble as a rigid truck in the bottom of a pit. When you're following an ore vein that is narrow, then the truck loading area can get pretty cramped. This is where the EFT truck design is a failure. It presumes that there's plenty of room everywhere its asked to operate. Tight manouvering room in the bottom of a pit precludes the use of this design. The length of the EFT truck precludes its use in pits with winding ramps. Every time you have to widen a ramp, even by a metre, or engineer a bigger radius into a ramp curve, you are reducing exposure to what sometomes amounts to millions of $$'s worth of additional ore.
Electrics may have their place, but I sure don't know where it would be. As someone here mentioned, they require trained and experienced Electricians, whom are scarce and expensive. A part costing a buck or two and about the size of a match head will often shut the entire unit down, while screwing the ICU up so bad it takes days or a complete replacement to repair. Electrical problems were and are a major problem with LeTourneau machines and WABCO's, and replacement parts were and are now often non-existent and very expensive. That's not to say that mechanical drives are cheap, but I believe they last longer and work better under adverse conditions than any electric drive.
The only place I have seen mechanical units outshine the electron units is in the wet soft conditions found here in the northwest. Put the wired machines on stable road conditions and level loading where they can get a little bit of speed up before pulling heavy grade and they run rings around the drive shaft units. The cost of unit drives is heavy but they outlast mechanical components by far. As far as requiring electricians to work on them goes, I worked for a dealer of Haulpac trucks that had 290 ton units at the Centralia coal mine in Washington State and our mechanics did all the work on them. There were no electricians working for that company. The factory provided special schools either in Peoria or on site to train people to maintain and repair them. There was a big discussion on the ETF trucks on LinkedIn a little while ago. The proponents tried making a big deal out of them but there were plenty of engineers that would have nothing to do with them. The consensus was that until a machine was produced that could back up the claims, they should just keep quiet. I know I wouldn't risk millions of dollars on a concept that has never gotten out of concept drawings.
Surfer Joe - So, let me see. Open the hood of your late 1990's or later pickup. How many sensors and ECU's can you find? - even if it's diesel? How many new mechanical-injection diesel engines have you seen in the last 12 mths? When you floor your truck, car or pickup, pedal to the metal, is there a direct cable connection to the engine, or just a wire and sensors? What about your tranny? No electrics controlling that? You must run a manual, or be driving an ancient clunker. Have you been to a trade show lately and seen the explosion of hybrid excavators and other machines? Seen the odd hybrid-drive truck around? Seen a few of the latest town bus designs lately? Electric drive is going to feature a whole lot more in our lives in the next few years than the last few, I can assure you that. Emission laws are driving this on one side, and fuel costs are driving it on the other side. I jump in my nephews new Cats and I'm stunned at how "push-button" they are, compared to my old 60's, 70's and 80's Cats. On-board diagnostics, GPS, auto-levelling devices .. and so on it goes. I see electric drive as being in a relatively infant state at present. Yes, it's been around, ever since Ferdinand Porsche designed, built and successfully sold, his electric-drive cars in 1901. However, no-one has ever "pushed" its development (apart from R.G. LeTourneau), because the big money in oil has always cruelled any major ED development push. When engineers understand that electrics and electronics need a little more protection than what has been given to them in the past, then they will compete head-to-toe with 100% mechanical drive.
John, in most places, you have to hold an electricians ticket in order to be allowed to work on electrical systems over a certain level. Electric drive trucks most certainly fall under that category. I can't recall the exact number here, but I seem to remember it being 600V. Anything over that, and you must be a licensed electrician, or you can't legally touch it.
Yair . . . The electric drive concept is interesting. A quick google search reveals that a lot of wok has been done on fitting haul trucks with pantographs and running them from the mains . . . apparently the diesel was started when they detached from the catenary to proceed to the shovel or the dump area. I understand that Komatsu is building pantograph equipped trucks in the 'States although on this new computer I have lost the link. A bit O/T here but I reckon the electric Seven is a sign of things to come. One advantage I can see is that (presumably) the machine could suffer a component failure that would not result in system cross contamination such as occurs with hydrostatics . . . does that make any sense? Cheers.
Electric-drive trucks using mains power - trolley assist, has become more popular with the rising price of diesel fuel. The first trolleys went into Central Africa IIRC during the late 70's early 80's to take advantage of the cheap hydro-electric power available to the mines. However currently in some countries (South Africa is one) there is a general shortage of electrical power and mines have to commit to using a certain percentage of diesel-powered equipment with the loss of tax breaks as a penalty for not complying. When you consider that in large open-pit mines most loading equipment is electrically-powered and the process plant will be 100% electric that kinda makes trolley assist for trucks a bit of a white elephant. Scrub, using trolley assist the diesel engine never shuts off, just that when under the trolley it sits idling while the truck draws power from the overhead lines. Some trolley assist systems even allow the power generated by the retard function of the truck is put back into the grid instead of being burnt off through a resistor grid.
Yair...thanks for the feedback fellers. This is out of my field completely and I appreciate the education. Cheers.
Electric drive trucks outperform the equivalent Cat truck quite handily where I am. More and more companies are finally understanding this and are buying new Komatsus and Hitachi dump trucks. I'll be really interested to hear how the new Cat 795 goes. The rail industry has known this for years, electric drive rules the tracks. As for the comment about an electric drive truck being more expensive to maintain, I doubt it, it takes more mechanical tradesmen to maintain a mechanical truck, thereby negating the extra few cents an hour an electrician gets paid. Not to forget that the electric drive systems in the latest models are very reliable and perform very well.
I have a hard time believing the claim of outperforming the Cat trucks quite handily as you put it. If you've seen the number of Cat trucks on order down there, you'd have a hard time saying more companies are buying electrics more than mechanical trucks. Also, it's not that electricians get paid more that escalates the costs, but the fact that you need more than one set of infrastructure to maintain them. Rail is a whole other ball of wax altogether, so I'll leave that alone.
Believe it, Cat's aggressive pricing and good dealer support has carried them a long way but out in the pit, the Hitachis are nicer to operate (especially the EH 4000) and beats the 793 in performance and efficiency. Not to mention that the Hitachi trucks in particular are much easier to work on than a mechanical drive Cat. I'm not saying that Cat gear is total rubbish, but it is a bit overrated by many. Also, I'm not buying the extra costs for maintaining and overhauling the high voltage electrics, the systems are very modular and have a long service service life. It takes many man hours and special tooling to overhaul transmission and diff assemblies as well. As far as new trucks go in the larger classes, the Komatsus are the go, Hitachi are getting there with their newest EH 4000 and a new 5000 is coming soon. Note: I exclude Liebherr from all discussions. Have fun.
KCMG tried out two equivalent size trucks, the MD Cat 793C and a Liebherr Ti 272 ED truck in the Super Pit in Kalgoorlie around 2002. The Liebherr performance was outstanding, and was out the top of the pit, on level ground, before the Cat was even 2/3rds the way up the ramp. The Liebherr had a bigger payload and looked really promising. It pulled out of the pit at 16kms hr with 270 metric tonnes payload, while the Cat pulled out at 12kms hr with 225 tonnes payload. However, the Liebherr turned in a poor performance in the reliability stakes, it was basically a prototype, and it was ditched in favour of more 793's. The big problem with changing makes and designs, particularly in a large mining operation, is that they cannot accept a new design that has no track record of reliability. In addition Liebherr could not provide the backup by way of spares and service that Cat provide; and changing to a totally new design means major change in the workforce structuring, and often in a host of ancillary support items. http://www.superpit.com.au/ http://www.superpit.com.au/Portals/...letter/pdf/CR_PUB_The_Dirt_Issue_08_Oct02.pdf (see Page 16)
I'm not saying mechanicals will outperform electrics all the time. In hard conditions, electrics can do quite well. However, I work with a mixed fleet of electric and mechanical drive trucks, and what you are claiming, simply isn't the case from my experience. Heck, based on availability alone, the mechanicals blow the electrics out of the water. In good going, the electrics do definitely have the speed advantage, there is no doubt of that. But when you get into soft conditions, muddy conditions, or generally tough going, the mechanicals walk away from the electrics. The electrics just bog down and move at a snails pace...if they can move at all. Funny thing, one of our contractors bought nothing but Hitachi trucks for a while, now they won't touch them, but still buy exclusively Hitachi hoes and shovels. They have bought a few 830Es and 930Es, but mostly buy 793s....lots of them. We also have one of the other mines here that used to buy tons of 930Es, and they have moved back to mostly mechanicals....go figure. As for the infrastructure for maintaining electric trucks goes, it's proprietary to the trucks. So it needs to be bought and maintained for the trucks and trucks alone, whereas the mechanical trucks use common infrastructure to other machines like dozers, graders, etc. So there is definitely a higher cost to tool up to running electric trucks rather than staying mechanical. Our other mine actually sent all of their electric trucks to us, simply to keep them all together, and not have a need to duplicate all the tooling at both locations. Ozdozer, the Liebherr being a prototype really has no bearing on it. Even their production trucks are pathetic when it comes to availability.
I suppose you mean Hitachi EH 4500s? They've moved on a fair bit from that now, the current EH 5000 is the last in that particular series, the 5000 is a decent truck now that their initial problems have been ironed out. But the Jap made 4000 is the pick of the bunch. Our pit is decidedly anti Cat truck after being around the Jap Hitachis for a couple of years. Operators like them as well and yes, that's in pretty bad clay too. Not a fan of Liebherr in general, whether that's trucks or diggers. That said, a pit here in QLD had 75% availability on their 797 fleet, I understand that they've since sold 10 of those trucks and replaced them with Komatsus. In our conditions here, electric drive offers many advantages.
As posted above by many - there are plus and minus points of drive system (mech vs elec) and of manufacturers. Some customers like one particular manufacturer, others don't. Operating conditions are a factor - dry & hard underfoot versus soft & boggy. A lot can depend on something as simple as the dealer support in the area where the customer operates. I personally wouldn't bag any manufacturer's product unless I had real-life experience of it operating in my pit and it turned out to be a load of sh1te. For example a mate of mine is working in an open-pit in Africa that has latest-generation Hitachi trucks commissioned within the past year and he doesn't have a single good word to say about them.
I remember seeing a chart from Cat showing the different types of mining conditions typically encountered, and the strength and weakness of each type of truck in the various conditions. This was just prior to the release of the prototype 795, and there were conditions shown where the electric showed a large advantage over mechanical. There were also many conditions where mechanical held a clear advantage. I think that studies like that played a part in Cat finally admitting that mechanical was not the perfect answer, and led them into the electric truck market as well. It seems each will shine, in the right application. That said, it does not matter how good the truck if it is not supported well in the local area you are working in. There are good and bad dealers in every brand. The best truck often comes down to the one you can get parts for to keep it running.
I'm referring to both 4500s and 5000s. Niether has proved to be of any real value here from what I have been able to glean from asking those who deal with them. I do know that nobody is buying them, and we are a VERY large truck market. I think Jerry hit the nail on the head with the comment about each drive type having an area they shine in. And I still contest the claim that more companies are going to electric over mechanical. Like I said, I've seen the order backlog for Cat's mechanical drive trucks down there, and I don't believe for a minute that electric is the truck of choice.
Delivery time for a Cat mechanical drive truck of any model 785 and larger was currently well over 1 year the last time I enquired in late 2011 and in all probability is closer to 2 years by now. If all of a sudden people are buying electric in large numbers it seems no-one's told the customers who keep on buying Cat .........
All of the trucks have a pretty big backlog, Hitachi are expanding their truck manufacturing capability, while Komatsu are constantly building machines down here too. Of course Cat are still selling many trucks, companies are taking what they can get as having a truck beats not having a truck. The pit that I work at has 8 785s on the way that were a cancelled order elsewhere and will have 13 EH 4000s in total in addition to the existing EH 3500, 785 and 793 fleet.
Theres alot more factors which come into play, delivery times, operating environment, purchase cost, running costs, manning costs (some mining companies are opting for autonomus haulage systems) the big miners also deal on a global scale too
Tell me about it. That's how we got Hitachi hydraulic shovels ..........
Hahaha, could be worse.
in this months earthmovers magazine there is a write up on the ETF truck ,with a visit to the factory ,with pictures of one under construction i will see if i can scan the page,s over the next few days the mag is a UK published thing but is available overseas http://www.earthmoversmagazine.co.uk/
This must be next month's copy....as in May. At any rate, it will be very interesting to see a prototype...finally.
hope it can give you some advice....... [URLxxxxxxxxxx[/URL]
Don't click on the link in the post above, by sunrene. It's spam, and my AV has blocked the site and warned me that it contains malware.
Please don't respond to spammer posts, makes our job of mopping them up more complex, thanks.
And there seems to have been a boatload of them lately too! Good job to all the mods' for keeping the site as clean as it is.
http://www.dse.nl/~emv/Dumper%20ETF-240.html look at this website. they have visited the building of the prototype. there are a few pictures on it!! looks impresive though!! wonder when this one is finished? is the member HDtruck still on this forum to reply when his first prototype is ready for action or at least a few real pictures!!??!!
Has anyone seen an english site with these trucks?
http://www.etftrucks.eu/ this webpage looks pretty english to me..!!
Has anyone seen any updates on the status of the first truck ETF was building?
For what it's worth, I asked "Have you built anything yet? Started manufacturing? Got any orders?" - by email and on their facebook page on 01 December. No reply to either, 3 months later. No photos of actual trucks, no evidence of tooling or production facilities. Just some photoshop.
Still haven't heard back. ETF seem to interact with the world primarily through social media (facebook, blogs, &c) but my question on their facebook page seems to have mysteriously disappeared, and comments are disabled on all their youtube videos. So, I tried emailing them again, with a cc to biglorryblog (which has, in the past, given lavish coverage of photoshopped ETF trucks). I hope no real-world customers paid money upfront for trucks which ETF failed to build. If that happened, it would be much worse than just another bunch of hoax pics on the internet...
If I was you I wouldn't be holding my breath for a reply ............. I think all the graphics on ETF's web site are being done by some nerdy teenager in his bedroom.
There is a prototype 220 Ton truck of this configuration in the dirt now. Using existing tech without all the fancy stuff shown on the website. 16 Wheels on 8 individual wheel stations. I am unsure if the company building it has any association with ETF, they did show a model at MinExpo (See link) http://dhtellc.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Full-booth-side-view-w-220-model.jpg
Yep, though that's not the ETF design. Simply another knock off of someone else's idea by a Chinese company. ETF was constructing a prototype, but nothing has been seen about it since a couple of shots from the factory of a truck that was VERY early in the construction phase.
Alco, It was designed in North America by a contract design firm made mostly of ex-engineers from the big guys, they are also overseeing the manufacturing process and build quality in China. I was a little surprised when I saw pictures of it hauling, first I didn't think the project was that far along, second because it was quite a bit more refined than expected. Not holding my breath but I suspect we will see a lot more from this company.
What I was trying to get at, is that the trucks are ultimately built by a Chinese consortium, even though the design was done elsewhere. Check out the design company's website, and some of the other work they have done....then look at the similarities between current designs from others major manufacturers, and the trucks they show CGIs of on the site........knock offs, can't really describe them any other way. So in my books, they are knock offs of someone else's design, by a Chinese manufacturer.
Alco hit the nail on the head. I talked to Cosic at the Expo quite a bit, there booth was right behind ours. Chinese reverse engineering group as well as a distributor for mine support products.
Everything is a knockoff of something, all products are based on work done by previous inventors or engineers, or combinations of designs or features. Very little real innovation or fresh ideas. We all use items every day that owe their creation to Archimedes or Galileo, what the hell. The Japanese copied US and European automakers but nobody today says they build knockoffs. The Chinese people I deal with are talented, educated, aggressive, and for the most part pretty honest. If you want the cheapest copy of something they can make it for you, but if you're willing to pay for quality and specify a legal product, again that's exactly what they'll deliver. Take a look at CAT and Deere Artics for one thing, anybody want to try to convince me they didn't use a lot of ideas taken from VOLVO? We do need some oversight to cut down on counterfeit products, but lets be fair, if they make a good machine why bash them for it? Cheers.
I think you need to realize that a knock off is more than simply using similar concepts and designs. We're talking straight out copies here, not machines that use similar designs, or a few of the same ideas.
I agree they are copying existing designs, though the ETF one has never been built. My point is from what I have seen so far these are not the cheap knocks offs, they are going to be a well built knock offs. They seem to be using a lot of the same Chinese & international suppliers as the big guys.
I tihnk it's worth pointing out that the "big guys" use Chinese suppliers to manufacture certain parts, not the whole machine. As an example I'm seeing some castings on Cat machines with "China" on them where a few years ago would say "Mexico" and prior to that "USA". Based on previous experience I would have thought that "well built" and "Chinese" was an oxymoron .............
CAT brought out DJB as a base for their artic trucks some time ago no need to copy volvo, improving/development of ideas is one thing, straight out copy is another thing completely
That's basically what I was trying to get at Rare SS.
That's impressive as hell. I like the coolers tucked up under the box, rather efficient use of space. Of course unless those pods turn at least 180, I'd hate to have to change an inside tire in the middle of the machine! :Banghead
OH MY, Is that in the flesh or I mean Steel ?
Hahahaha, what a gem! Obviously that one isn't really the knockoff type that I was describing. Man, is it ever ugly....wonder how it will work out?
Can't say I'm impressed too much with the chassis. That's going to flex like a flexible thing IMHO. And *** are the 2 fan units under the back of the dump body and how long will it take spillage from Alco's shovel bucket to take them out ..?
I'm sure all of us with a genuine interest in machinery will welcome new manufacturers and concepts to give a bit of variety back to the game. The heavy equipment scene has gone from bland to blander in recent years. I can see a lot of drawbacks to this truck, but part of me wants it to work.
Google "WTW220E"
I love how the last image has it listed as a "WORLD EXCLUSIVE CONCEPT"...LOL. Looking at the other pictures, can you imagine how heavy this thing is? Thanks for posting these LuNaTIcFrEAk.
I don't disagree with you, but I can see a few after looking at the specs. http://www.wme.cn/OffRoadMiningDumpTruck/WTW220E.pdf 1. Rated Payload is low compared to the empty weight. 2. Awfully slow loaded - 30km/h max, ***..? 3. Slow hydraulics - 30 second dump body lift time. 4. Longer than a conventional truck. Despite the novel steering system I suspect it'll be less manoeuvrable than a "conventional" truck.
Nige, I found a maximum speed of 45km/h. Still really slow, but a bit better than 30km/h at least. I don't know how they'll be able to make this dog compete with the specs it displays. Higher empty weight and lower payload than the standards for the class aren't going to win it any points with most users. The slower all round speeds are going to kill it even worse.
Alco, check that link I posted. It gives max loaded speed as 30km/h & empty as 45km/h, lines 11 & 12 on Page 1.
I would hate to ask what the "O" and "O" cost would be on this thing????
http://www.etftrucks.eu/
Sorry Nige, I never even saw the link the first time around. I can't imagine they're going to see much interest with specs like these. OSK, if you go back through the thread, you will see that the ETF trucks concepts, and the similarities between the two are what spurred on this discussion.
I would imagine fuel consumption would not be competitive with a lighter tare weight truck.
While it will not win any beauty contests, it looks like it is working. I am not sure how big it really is, but it looks like a pretty good sized load on it. I would like to hear some feedback after it has run a while. This one looks like a load body was added to a giant SPMT.
http://cnsanjiang.en.alibaba.com/pr...c_drive_dumper.html?tracelog=cgsotherproduct1 It is not expensive and short delivery time, but the price / quality / operating costs / utilization of the equation then appears questionable when most of those factors is unknown : (
BEWARE of ETF - European Truck Factory GmbH & UAE, unless of course you like cartoons which they are great at generating.
RollTideinGA, welcome to Heavy Equipment Forums. Those of us who've been following what's been posted here are probably all familiar with ETF's nicely rendered graphics. Do you have anything more specific to share other than that general caution? I'm sure you'd have an attentive audience.
I have Consulting Services and Advisory Board agreements, emails from and voice recordings of Mr Eddy de Jongh spouting the same ole lines repeated today from back in 2009. I have emails showing my involvement in ideas for design improvements, I think I even have the pictures he sent of the "frame". It was one month, three months, six months from completion, but alas NEVER anything forthcoming except for the animations. I believe more real pictures of Bigfoot exist than the ETF truck! Here is one of the originals put out
A few more things on ETF EUROPEAN TRUCK FACTORY Has anyone noticed that on the youtube videos of the ETF trucks that the comments have been disabled ? That sure is curious! Mr Eddy de Jongh is quoted in the OEM Off High-way September 19, 2012 article that he states "The first truck is set to be delivered in December to an iron ore company based in Brazil." http://www.oemoffhighway.com/article/10769943/non-rigid-design-of-a-rigid-haul-truck But isn't it time we quit assuming? As Mr Eddy de Jongh did not state the then current year of the 2012 article, did he mean December 2013, 2014...2020???????? Did Michelle EauClaire-Kopier the Editor and Associate Publisher of OEM Off-Highway magazine and writer of this story actually "see" the truck. Has ANYONE? It's time for Eddy de Jongh to put up or shut up!
RollTideinGA, do you care to explain your disdain for Mr. de Jongh? Every post you've made thus far is critical of him. I'm curious.
I have not related ANYTHING that is inaccurate, my disdain is for liars and frauds.
If you've read through this thread, I don't think there's anyone who takes this project seriously at this point. You've made your point, there's no need to beat a dead horse. I suspect there's more to your atory than you're revealing.
And typically, when someone makes the charge of "liars and frauds", that someone typically has at the very least some circumstantial evidence of such a lie or fraud, otherwise one is just blowing smoke. Although, as Steve stated, it's hard to imagine anyone is taking this thread with any high degree of seriousness, but liar and fraud opens a whole new door to explore. :yup
Not to add fuel to the fire, but yes. There have actually been a few pictures published of the truck in the early stages of construction.
alco, I don't want to **** on your chips, but you have to remember that Photoshop exists these days. Personally speaking I think there's more chance of me winning a Nobel Peace Prize than an ETF truck hauling a load of dirt.
Nige, Do you have your ticket for the trip to OSLO? http://www.nobelpeacecenter.org/
Nige, they weren't photoshopped, they were actual pictures of the truck under construction. Now, whether it was ever finished is another thing, but the prototype does exist.
you mean this site? http://www.dse.nl/~emv/Dumper ETF-240.html looks indeed pretty real to me, but i thought it they are on that site for more than 3 years now. maybe they went bankrupt?? or it took longer then they thought....
Has anyone put a number on this thing? There is no way any application I can think of where this would work! The purchase cost would be prohibitive-O & O cost would be out of site.
Those aren't the ones I was referring to, but along the same lines. Good find, Thank you. Their concept didn't allow for purchasing the trucks. They would only allow the customer to lease the trucks under a full maintenance plan, where they performed all the maintenance covered under the lease costs.
What about down time?
They claimed they could change out any parts on the truck in virtually no time, since everything was modular. They planned to keep a full set of spares on site, so they could perform any change outs as they came along. Personally, I think their plans were so full of flaws, it's not even funny, but these are some of the claims they made.
What's the cost of all spare parts on hand? I would like to see some numbers on rental or lease programs! Bet this would really make it interesting.
That's the thing, they were to provide all the parts as part of the lease program, so they won't ever release their true costs.
I'm curious why we are still talking as if this thing exists???
at least the miniature exists http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpCP8beH4D8
Yes it is real, first trucks to be delivered before summer 2014.
Don't tell me Vale were stupid enough to front up for buying from ETF ...........
yep. From my point of view, it makes sense in really large operations, like Carajás... The modular parts are no news, but I know of other manufacturers already working on simmilar prototypes.
If they are to be delivered then they should be in manufacture now. I'm not holding my breath.
Here's a thought. Take a truck with a single engine and assume that the mechanical availability/reliability for the engine alone is 98% or 0.98. If the truck could move 100k tonnes per year then based on engine availability alone it would actually move 98k tonnes. Take 4 trucks one quarter the size of the previous example each truck capable of moving 25k tonnes per year with the same level of engine reliability and they move 4 x 25 x 0.98 - still 98k tonnes. Take a single truck capable of moving 100k tonnes per year that has 4 engines, each one with a 0.98 level of availability/reliability as before. But this time to calculate the downtime due to the engines you have to multiply 0.98 by itself 4 times because the truck can only work when all 4 engines are operating. 0.98 x 0.98 x 0.98 x 0.98 = 0.922, 7.8% less than the single-engined trucks in the example above. The production would only be 92.2k tonnes per year. Even if the truck had a limp home mode in case of an engine problem enabling the exchange of a power unit to be made more rapidly than a single-engine truck that of course has to be recovered in the case of an engine failure, to achieve the same level of production with a truck containing 4 power units the availability based on the power unit alone would have to increase from our original assumption of 0.98 to an actual 0.995, so from 98% to 99.5% in other words. That does not leave a lot of "wiggle room" IMHO. Call me an old cynic if you will but I personally can't see that happening in the rufty-tufty world of mining. As the ETF machine has multiple everything, not just engines/power units, then the above calculation could be repeated an infinitum for every major component on the machine.
easy math and I had that same thought... more stuff, more problems, right? Still, as far as I know, the truck runs on partial engines, axles, suspensions, etc.... unless fully loaded. A mining maintenece manager once said: Engineers find magnificent solutions, but don't operate or pay for them.
An engineer is a person who in the purest terms thinks that if something isn't broken yet it doesn't have enough features ..................
Nige you beat me to it..... again I cant believe they even sold one, I couldnt find a real picture of one just the same old animations. Because it was so interesting and informative, and not specific to the ETF topic, the discussion of leases and MARCs that followed in this thread has been moved to a thread of its own: ~Digger242j
Resurrecting a thread dead for more than a year... while reading up on the CAT 349E excavator, that led me to mining trucks with lead to ETF Haul Trains... which, for some reason, I had looked at a couple of years ago. What I don't get is that threads on this yet to be built prototype go all the way back to 2007 where the CEO of ETF was making comments in this forum, and now, 8 years later, it looks like the development status is exactly where it was 8 years ago... nada, nothing, zero, zip. So why does the ETF website remain up, relatively untouched when I looked at it a few years ago? I mean, the copyright notice has been updated to 2015, but nothing else has changed. What's the point? Is this just a dream that someone can't let go of? Near as I can tell, there are significant cost and design issues (particularly suspension) that mean this beast (admittedly an intriguing idea) won't ever be built. Thoughts?
Yair . . . Strong Eagle . I can't find the link but at least one truck in this configuration has been built in China . . . whether it is just a knockoff or the real deal I don't know. Cheers.
Scrub, the truck from China is really quite a different animal to the ETF truck. StrongEagle, while I am unsure of whether or not it was ever completed, they did have a prototype of the ETF truck being built a year or so ago. Something else of note, is that the name of the company has changed since the original thread and posts by the CEO. It was originally the Emirates Truck Factory, and now it's the European Truck Factory. So they kept the ETF bit, but changed what it stood for. I'm still not convinced that it's much more than a way to rob investors of their money.
Yair . . . Gotcha alco. The point I make is that if the Chinese have a similar unit up and running it may well throw a spanner in the works of the original developers of the concept. Cheers.
I think the Chinese truck is a copy of the ETF concept, does look somewhat similar
Yair . . . . rare ss I can't find my link to the site but from what I remember the Chinese rig was remarkably similar in layout and appearance and it is up and running . . . they have made the investment in design and tooling. Does world mining want two different manufacturers of a radically new style of truck? . . . initially probably not. If I was ETF I would be sitting in my hands a while to see how things play out. I see some similarities to the development of ADT's. I don't recall the time frame but, in the early days, all you could get was a Volvo and then, as the concept was proven, other manufacturers came out with their versions . . . with varying results. Cheers.
The Chinese truck is actually quite different structurally. The ETF truck has a spine, if you will, as it's main frame, where the Chinese truck is built on a platform, not really that much different than a Self Propelled Modular Transporter Trailer. The only real similarities are that they are both multi wheel designs. I believe the suspension between the two is also quite different. I realize the general appearance is somewhat similar, but one is not quite a copy of the other. Incidentally, has anybody seen the pictures of the prototype under construction with the cab on it?
Yair . . . Gotcha alco and Wow, thanks for the pictures. alco am I thinking right in that one of the reasons for going to the multi wheel design is to utilise smaller more readily available/handleable tyres that can stand up to higher speeds? While I'm asking question can you or any other mining folks give any insights as to why the big tyred bogie tandems put out by several of the manufacturers have failed? Cheers.
Sure looks like fun changing the inner tires!
I think the drive pods spin 360... don't quote me on that. But if they do, sweet! That's another thing, I think I read in the blurbs somewhere that they figure they can change out a defective drive unit in a couple hours. You have a failure, it just lifts up off the roadbed and you drive to the shop on the good legs? Four engines supplying power, only uses what it needs and when running empty for instance shuts two or three of them down, bad engine, keep going just slower. Swap out an engine power pack module in a couple hours also. All good ideas, have to see how it turns out in practice.
I was on another site and came across a link to the pictures first posted by alco, as well as a clickable pdf of some more info. Sounds like they may be putting three trucks in a Vale mine. Here is the link : http://www.micfil.net/hp/en-us/references/etfminingtrucks.aspx It is from an ad for the filters they use, but there is a link to an article in "International Mining" on that page. It will be interesting to hear how their ideas work out in practice.
Made in Slovenia. No comment. They're actually building them, will be interesting to see if all the technology holds up in actual use. I know it's all supposed to be modular and quick replace, but how about all the wire harnesses and interconnect? Must be a thousand sensors in each truck also..... Good luck to them, I like most of the features they expound.
Yair . . . I was sent this . . . . It is obviously computer build but my informant tells me that ETF stands for Emirates Truck Factory and they have a prototype train undergoing trials hauling two thousand metric tons. Note these are four axle units(the two middle axles lift for running empty) the green trucks have five axles. Apparently there is huge production factory out in the desert somewhere and it is all very hush hush . . . is this a wind up or what, I am thoroughly confused? Cheers
Scrub, ETF used to stand for "European Truck Factory" because the founder of the company was Dutch (Eddy de Jongh?), I guess that now most of the money is in the Middle East they are being bankrolled by the Emirates so it doesn't even need a name change. TBH I will be extremely surprised if we ever see an ETF machine in the dirt. The factory in the desert isn't that hush hush, it's on Google Maps .......... see below http://www.etftrucks.eu/extra/contact-ETF/
Yair . . . Thanks Nige , It didn't ring right to me but I thought I'd pass it on. (Big grin) Cheeres.
It's actually the other way around. It was originally known as the Emirates Truck Factory, but at some point they changed it to the European truck Factory, and moved the factory through a series of contractors shops, located in several locations throughout Europe. The desert factory was what they originally proposed, but never got to the point of actually starting to build it. It looks like the desert factory Nige refers to, is really just an office.
Almost another year later and still nothing ......... without digging into the subject it must be the best part of 10 years since the concept truck first appeared on the internet. I have the hammer, nails, and coffin all lined up ....... and it looks as though I'm going to miss out on that Nobel Peace Prize......
I've had some good ideas over the years (and a lot of dumb ones) but I am not the kind of man that networks well or attracts the kind of backers it takes to fund a manufacturing startup. Still, if you don't have dreams life would be a bit tedious, yes? I read somewhere that on average it's the third go that makes a product successful. I'm guessing CAT will come out with a similar product having "invented" it suddenly out of nowhere and claiming it's the haul truck equivalent of the fantastic high drive dozer design!
http://iepieleaks.nl/first-etf-mining-truck-almost-ready-roll/
I found that while Googling but dismissed it as a LOB.... ETF's Facebook page doesn't appear to have had anything posted on it for years, and the factory web site appears to have disappeared, if that's not a contradiction in terms.
Latest posting I can find, still no pics of any actually hauling anything.... https://www.***********/r/MachinePorn/comments/44dwdx/the_first_etf_mt240_mining_truck_under/