The TZ5Y electric mining truck is an electric truck engineered for Botswana's diamond haul roads, built on the proven TZ5E heavy electric dump truck platform and fitted with a 400 kWh CATL LFP battery that shrugs off dusty, high-heat pit cycles. For a diamond mine where the haul is fixed, the grade is known and the shifts run around the clock, electrification is less a leap of faith than a straightforward fuel-substitution project with a clear payback.
Botswana's diamond operations around Orapa, Letlhakane and Jwaneng move millions of tonnes of kimberlite and waste rock a year. Diesel haul trucks burn heavily on the climb out of the pit and add heat and fumes underground and at the crusher, degrading both air quality for operators and the efficiency of ventilation systems. An electric truck removes tailpipe emissions from the working face and cuts the fuel bill that dominates a mine's operating cost. In the Southern Africa electric truck market, mining is the fastest-returning EV segment because routes are closed, repeatable and metered, so every kilowatt-hour saved is directly measurable.
The economics are doubly favourable in Botswana because grid power is relatively clean and cheap compared with trucked diesel to a remote pit. When the alternative is a fuel convoy crossing long distances to keep a diesel fleet running, a charged battery and a swap pack start to look like the lower-risk supply chain.
| Parameter | TZ5Y Mining (Botswana) |
|---|---|
| Battery | CATL LFP 400 kWh |
| Drive motor | LvKong 282-510 kW |
| Payload class | Heavy rigid dump |
| Range per charge | 200-350 km |
| Swap capability | 5-6 min battery swap |
| Gradeability | Strong low-speed climb |
| Battery warranty | 8 years / 4,500 cycles |
| FOB price range | $120k-$180k |
The 400 kWh pack is sized for a full pit shift of loaded climbs and empty returns, with the sealed LvKong motor delivering maximum torque from standstill so the loaded ramp out of the excavation never feels underpowered.
Botswana's dry season pushes ambient temperatures past 38 °C and throws fine dust through every seal on a conventional truck. The TZ5Y's LFP chemistry tolerates the heat without the thermal anxiety of NMC packs, and the sealed motor unit needs no air intake in the dust cloud, which is a meaningful reliability win when a single ingested grain can stall a diesel. Crews report steadier torque on the pit ramp because the electric drivetrain delivers full motor output from standstill, which matters on a loaded climb where a diesel would be labouring in a low gear.
Regenerative braking on the loaded descent is another quiet benefit: energy that a diesel would waste as heat in the retarder is recovered into the pack, extending effective range on the return haul and lowering the total energy drawn from the pit charging point.
The swap option is what turns the TZ5Y from a good truck into a continuous-duty asset, because the limiting factor becomes pack availability rather than recharge time.
The TZ5Y sits in the $120k-$180k FOB band depending on body and axle spec. Mines recover that premium through diesel avoidance and lower maintenance, and the 8-year / 4,500-cycle warranty covers most of a haul truck's economic life. For Botswana operators already running the TZ5E heavy electric dump truck platform, shared spares and training simplify the switch and reduce the number of unique parts a remote workshop must stock.
Payback modelling should include the ventilation and cooling savings underground, which are easy to overlook. Fewer diesel units on the face means less heat to extract and less fresh-air demand, and those savings compound across the life of the mine plan.
Standardizing on the TZ5E platform lets a Botswana fleet carry one motor type, one controller family and one battery form factor across trucks. That cuts workshop complexity and ensures a swap pack from one truck fits another. In a remote pit, that commonality is worth more than a few percentage points of spec because it determines whether a breakdown becomes a two-day wait for a couriered part or a ten-minute swap from the pool.
A mid-pit swap station needs only a level pad, a crane or shuttle and a climate-managed pack rack; it draws far less than a fast-charge farm and never strands a truck on a low state of charge. Place the station at the load-and-return midpoint so both directions can swap, and size the pack pool to cover the longest single haul plus one contingency pack. With a 5-6 minute swap, station throughput easily matches a busy shovel's loading rate.
A battery-electric haul truck changes the pit's risk picture in ways supervisors welcome. With no diesel exhaust, enclosed cab filtration is simpler and the working face meets occupational exposure limits more easily. Training focuses on high-voltage isolation, swap-pack handling and regenerative-braking behaviour rather than engine faults, and most diesel-experienced operators are productive on the TZ5Y within a few shifts.
On a representative Botswana pit, a diesel haul truck burns hundreds of litres of fuel per shift, whereas the TZ5Y draws that energy from the grid at a fraction of the per-kilometre cost. Add the eliminated engine service, the longer service interval and the 8-year / 4,500-cycle battery warranty, and the electric truck's operating cost per tonne-kilometre typically lands well below diesel once the fleet is past break-even. For remote pits where diesel is trucked hundreds of kilometres, the grid advantage widens further, and the swap pool removes the single biggest failure mode of a battery fleet.
Shaanxi Fenghan Trading stocks the common TZ5E-platform wear items — suspension, brakes, lights and motor-controller diagnostics — for regional dispatch, and the sealed LvKong motor rarely needs internal service inside the warranty window. Mines should budget one spare pack per swap pool rather than per truck, which is cheaper than the diesel equivalent of a standby engine and keeps the whole fleet moving on a single shared resource.
Electrifying the haul fleet is the easy half; the mine should also plan pit charging power so the swap pool and opportunity chargers never compete with processing load. Botswana grids are stable enough for a staged connection, and most pits already run high-voltage substations that can feed a swap station with modest upgrade. We model the peak draw of the pack pool against your existing demand so the EV fleet slides in without a costly new feeder. The payback improves further when the same substation also supports workshop tooling and future electric drills or loaders, because the fixed cost of clean pit power is shared across more equipment. Mines that treat electrification as a site-wide program, not a single truck purchase, see the strongest return on the TZ5Y investment.
Contact Shaanxi Fenghan Trading for a Botswana-duty TZ5Y quote, a pit-specific range model and a swap-station layout sized to your haul distance and cycle time. We will model your actual grade profile and tonnage so the battery size and charger count match the operation rather than a generic brochure figure.
Ready to electrify your fleet? Contact Shaanxi Fenghan Trading — authorized Dongfeng EV truck exporter. WhatsApp: +86 153 1943 1311 | Email: sales@fenghan-trade.com | dongfengevtrucks.com
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