China has dispatched a fleet of 31 pure electric mining trucks to Zambia, marking a significant milestone in the use of green technology in Africa’s extractive industries. The trucks, provided by Chinese high-tech firm Breton Technology, set sail on Sunday and are en route to support a major copper mining project in Zambia.
The deployment is in collaboration with the African branch of China’s state-owned 15th Metallurgical Construction Group and is being touted as the first large-scale rollout of electric mining trucks for a single project on the continent.
“This overseas cooperation is the first of its kind and will help further upgrade local mining equipment,” said Li Wenjie, chairman of the 15th Metallurgical Construction Group’s construction trade arm in Africa.
Breton Technology, which specializes in green construction machinery, is also providing a zero-carbon mining robot system, integrating autonomous driving and clean energy technologies alongside the electric trucks.
“We believe that in the near future, unmanned mining fleets will be seen operating in Africa,” stated Teng Fei, head of strategy and overseas business at Breton.
The shipment is expected to arrive in Durban, South Africa, after a 20- to 25-day sea journey, before continuing overland to Zambia.
This technological advancement comes as China pledges $5 billion in investment into Zambia’s mining sector by 2031, as part of its broader Belt and Road Initiative. However, the growing Chinese presence in Zambia’s mining industry has not been without controversy.
In February 2025, a Chinese-owned copper mine operated by Sino-Metals Leach Zambia suffered a major environmental failure when a dam breach released 50 million litres of acidic waste into a tributary of the Kafue River. The incident caused pollution along more than 100 kilometres downstream, raising alarms about environmental safeguards in foreign-owned operations.
Despite the setbacks, Zambian officials have maintained that the push toward modernizing the mining sector — particularly through low-emission technologies — is essential for economic growth and sustainable development.
The introduction of electric mining trucks could play a key role in reducing the carbon footprint of Zambia’s mining operations, aligning with the country’s climate commitments and growing interest in green industrialization.
With Zambia’s infamous load shedding ?And why do we still rely on foreign mining expertise instead of 000s of one hundred percent Zambians like Chileshe, Banda, Muti etc ?
@Enka if you don’t have anything sensible to say why don’t you just shut up.
Black Man has something sensible to say. No wonder he failed to keep quite quiet. My advice is, don’t muzzle an ox while it is threshing the soy.
How do you buy an electric lorry when there’s no electricity? The sensible answer from you, is how to mitigate that. Simple.
seriously – electric trucks ?
Unless the mines are planning to generate their own power without drawing from the grid – this sounds insane.
We just don’t have the capacity to produce the required amounts of electricity.
How about that nuclear power that we’ve been hearing about for years (decades) ?
what happened to that ?
We were supposed to have built one together with the russians by now ..
It was a Rusatom Research Reactor near Chongwe, nothing to be excited about!