LKAB Runs 120-Tonne Electric Trucks 1,250 Metres Down

Swedish state-owned miner LKAB has put two 120-tonne battery-electric Scania trucks into service at its Malmberget iron ore mine, working at depths of up to 1,250 metres, and the pair have already hauled more than 100,000 tonnes of ore.

Sweden’s LKAB has taken one of the harder pieces of mining decarbonisation and put it to work underground. The state-owned iron ore producer is running two 120-tonne battery-electric Scania trucks at its Malmberget mine, operating at depths of up to 1,250 metres, and the pair have already moved more than 100,000 tonnes of ore since entering service, electrive reported.

That last number is the one that matters. Heavy electric haulage has no shortage of prototypes, pilot fleets and press-day demonstrations. What it has lacked is tonnage — proof that a battery truck can absorb the duty cycle of a deep mine day after day, in cold, wet, dusty ramp conditions, without a diesel machine standing by to cover the shift.

Why underground is the best case for batteries, not the worst

Instinct says a mine a kilometre and a quarter below the surface is the least hospitable place for a battery. In practice it is close to the most attractive.

The reason is ventilation. Diesel engines burning fuel underground produce heat, particulates and exhaust gas that must be pushed out and replaced with fresh air. Ventilation is one of the largest single electricity consumers at a deep mine, and it scales with the diesel fleet. Take the engines out and the ventilation requirement falls with them. So does the cooling load, the diesel handling and storage infrastructure, and the exposure of operators to exhaust in confined headings.

The duty cycle helps too. An underground hauler runs a fixed, repeated route: load at the draw point, climb the ramp, tip, return. Routes are short and known. Loaded runs go up, empty runs come down, which means regenerative braking recovers energy on the descent instead of burning brake pads. Fixed routes also mean charging can be placed where the truck already stops, rather than designed around uncertainty about where the vehicle will be.

Torque is the other quiet advantage. Electric drivelines deliver full pulling force from a standstill, which is exactly what a fully laden 120-tonne machine needs on a ramp gradient. Diesel haulers spend their working lives in the part of the power curve where they are least efficient and loudest.

What 100,000 tonnes actually represents

At a gross vehicle weight of 120 tonnes, the payload is a fraction of that figure — the rest is the machine itself, and LKAB has not published a payload split. But the direction of the arithmetic is clear enough. Taking the 120-tonne figure as a rough upper bound on what moves per trip, more than 100,000 tonnes of delivered ore implies on the order of 800-plus loaded runs across the two trucks, or roughly 400 apiece. That is an illustrative estimate rather than a reported operating statistic, and the true trip count will be higher because payload is always less than gross weight.

Either way, it is not a demonstration. It is production haulage, repeated hundreds of times, with a shift schedule behind it. That is the threshold a mining engineer cares about, because the risk in electrifying haulage is not whether the truck works — it is whether the fleet availability holds up once charging time is folded into the roster.

Charging is the real engineering problem

The battery is the easy part. The hard part is that a mine’s economics are measured in tonnes per hour, and a truck plugged in is a truck not hauling. Every serious underground electrification programme therefore ends up as a charging-logistics programme.

Three levers exist, and operators mix them:

• Opportunity charging. Short top-ups during loading and tipping, so the truck never needs a long dedicated stop. This demands high-power connections at the working faces and moves the constraint from the vehicle to the mine’s electrical distribution.
• Depth as an asset. Loaded descents and regenerative braking recover energy, which in some layouts meaningfully reduces net consumption per cycle.
• Shift-aligned charging. Charging during blast windows, crew changes and maintenance stops, when the machine would be idle regardless.

All three require power infrastructure to follow the mine as it deepens and advances — cabling, substations, protection, and enough installed capacity that a bank of chargers does not trip the ventilation fans. That is capital spending on the mine, not on the truck, and it is why electrification decisions at depth are made at the mine-plan level rather than the procurement level.

What it means for Scania’s commercial vehicle strategy

For Scania, a 120-tonne battery-electric machine working at 1,250 metres is a reference case that a highway tractor cannot provide. Mining is the segment where the total-cost argument for electric heavy vehicles is strongest and least dependent on subsidy: fuel is expensive to get underground, ventilation costs real money, and the routes are short and repeatable. It is also a segment where the customer owns the depot, owns the grid connection and controls the duty cycle — the three things that make public-road electrification difficult.

Winning there gives a truck maker durable, high-hour field data on batteries, thermal management and driveline reliability under loads no on-road application generates. That data feeds back into the wider product line.

For LKAB, the logic runs the other way. Iron ore’s customers are steelmakers, and steelmakers in Europe are under pressure to document the carbon intensity of their inputs. A miner that can show diesel removed from its haulage fleet is building an argument about the ore itself, not just about its own emissions ledger.

What to watch next

The questions that decide whether this becomes a fleet rather than a pair of trucks are operational, not technological. Battery life under repeated fast charging at depth. Availability against the diesel machines they replace. Whether the ventilation savings LKAB can bank are large enough to fund the electrical infrastructure the next tranche of trucks would need. And whether the maintenance profile — fewer moving parts, but high-voltage systems in a wet mine — nets out favourably over several years rather than several months.

The broader equity market gave no particular verdict on the day: the S&P 500 tracker (SPY) closed at $765.91, up 0.32%, with the Nasdaq 100 proxy (QQQ) at $710.72, up 0.62%, as of the last trade at 20:00 GMT on 25 August 2026. LKAB is state-owned and not listed, so the read-through for investors runs through the equipment and battery supply chain rather than the miner. Underground haulage is a small slice of global battery demand today. Its significance is that it is one of the few heavy-duty applications where the switch pays for itself on operating cost alone.

Key facts

• Trucks deployed: Two 120-tonne battery-electric Scania haulers
• Site: LKAB’s Malmberget iron ore mine, Sweden
• Operating depth: Up to 1,250 metres below surface
• Ore moved to date: More than 100,000 tonnes since entering service

Frequently asked questions

What has LKAB put into service at Malmberget?

LKAB, the Swedish state-owned iron ore producer, has deployed two 120-tonne battery-electric Scania trucks at its Malmberget mine. The vehicles work at depths of up to 1,250 metres and have already hauled more than 100,000 tonnes of iron ore since entering service, making this production haulage rather than a short-term demonstration.

Why is an underground mine a good place for electric trucks?

Diesel engines underground produce heat and exhaust that must be removed by ventilation, one of a deep mine’s biggest electricity consumers. Removing diesel cuts ventilation and cooling loads and improves air quality for crews. Haul routes are also short, fixed and repeated, which suits batteries and allows regenerative braking to recover energy on descents.

What is the main obstacle to electrifying underground haulage?

Charging logistics. A mine is measured in tonnes per hour, so time spent plugged in is lost production. Operators use opportunity charging during loading and tipping, energy recovered on loaded descents, and charging aligned with blast windows and crew changes. All of it requires electrical infrastructure that follows the mine as it deepens.

How much ore does each trip carry?

LKAB has not published a payload figure. The 120 tonnes cited is gross vehicle weight, so the ore carried per trip is less than that. Using 120 tonnes as a rough upper bound, more than 100,000 tonnes implies on the order of 800-plus loaded runs across both trucks — an illustrative estimate, not a reported statistic.

Is LKAB a listed company?

No. LKAB is owned by the Swedish state and does not trade on a stock exchange, so there is no share price to follow. Investors seeking exposure to this trend generally look instead at the equipment manufacturers, battery cell suppliers and electrical infrastructure firms that serve mining electrification programmes.

Why does this matter for Scania’s truck business?

Mining offers the strongest total-cost case for heavy electric vehicles without relying on subsidy, because the customer controls the depot, the grid connection and the duty cycle. A 120-tonne machine running at 1,250 metres also generates high-hour reliability data on batteries and drivelines under loads no on-road application produces.

Sources

• LKAB deploys 120-tonne electric trucks underground — electrive

Photo: Julia Volk · Pexels Licence — source