EACON Mining Technology has brought 60 battery-electric autonomous haul trucks to full site-wide operation at the Zhibula Copper Mine in Tibet, a project the company says is the world's first site-wide autonomous battery-electric vehicle operation above 5,000 meters in elevation. The mine sits at roughly 5,400 meters and is operated by Tibet Julong Copper Co., a subsidiary of Zijin Mining Group.
The 60 trucks arrived on site in September 2025, and EACON says it validated driverless operation without onboard safety drivers within two weeks of deployment. Full site-wide autonomous operation across all 60 trucks was reached by the end of September 2026, according to a PR Newswire release dated November 4.
Scale and Impact Claims
EACON says the deployment is China's largest single-site autonomous haulage fleet at a metal mine. The company reports an 80% reduction in driver staffing requirements, a 16% increase in daily effective working hours, and an expected reduction of roughly 12,000 tonnes of carbon emissions annually from switching the fleet to battery power alongside autonomy. EACON's autonomous haulage system uses multi-sensor fusion and adaptive vehicle control that the company says has been validated for high-altitude conditions, where thin air and extreme temperature swings strain both vehicle batteries and sensor performance.
High-Altitude Mining as a Testbed
Autonomous haul trucks have been operating at scale in lower-altitude mines for years, led by established players such as Komatsu's FrontRunner and Caterpillar's Cat Command systems in Australia's Pilbara region. What distinguishes the Zhibula deployment is the altitude and the use of battery-electric, rather than diesel, trucks: at 5,400 meters, oxygen levels are roughly half of sea level, which affects combustion engine performance but also strains battery thermal management and sensor reliability in cold, thin air.
EACON describes itself as operating the world's most widely deployed autonomous haulage system, with more than 4,000 trucks automated across 40 projects spanning coal, iron ore, copper, gold and zinc operations. The Zhibula project builds on EACON's earlier work at the same Julong complex, where the company first began testing autonomy at altitude in 2025.
The companies have not disclosed the capital cost of converting the Zhibula fleet or a timeline for expanding autonomous operation to other high-altitude sites within Zijin Mining's broader portfolio. If the carbon and labor savings EACON reports hold up over a full year of continuous operation, the project could become a reference case for mining companies weighing similar conversions at other high-altitude copper and gold deposits in South America and Central Asia.