Diesel-electric locomotives have been barreling along America’s wide-open spaces for generations, and the century-old combination of highly efficient diesel engines spinning up generators to power high-torque electric motors has proven tough to beat. Now, Caterpillar is putting that century-old concept to work underground. Meet the CAT R3200 XE LHD.
One of the many hard-working machines moving chunks of Earth under your feet, an LHD (load, haul, and dump) machine is essentially a massive underground wheel loader designed to scoop up blasted rock, haul it through narrow mine tunnels, then dump it into trucks or ore passes. Built low and wide to fit in the tunnels, LHDs are workhorses of underground mining operations – and the new R3200 XE is CAT’s biggest yet, with a 25 ton payload and electric drive.
Before we get into the machine’s specs (the few that we have, anyway), I want to make sure understand that large-scale mining operations use obscene amounts of fuel, and a swing in site efficiency of just 1-2% can mean a huge difference in the bottom line – and fuel prices were up 27.4% (!) in August alone.
Keep the staggering weight of what that kind of fuel cost can mean to a fleet that buys fuel by the literal truckload as you read the rest of this.
Tier V CAT diesel
Though not yet officially released by CAT, snippets of the company’s launch video have been leaking through dealers and trade journals, and they show the big machine powered by CAT’s newest 18.1 liter Tier 5 C18 diesel generator making 527 hp (~390 kW). That C18 reportedly sends electrons to the same electric drive system used in the company’s already successful 18-ton R2900 XE LHD.
In addition to a bigger generator and heftier payload, CAT says the upcoming R3200 XE LHD offers reduced cycle times versus the R2900 XE with 11% better speed on grade, plus reduced maintenance and repair costs thanks to design refinements for better durability, including redesigned axle. All told, that works out to 28% more tons per hour with 8% better fuel efficiency.
That efficiency is boosted by the same baked-in ADAS tech that’s made the smaller R2900 XE a favorite, and includes the latest version of CAT AutoDig and MineStar, ensuring that the machines are easy for experienced CAT operators to set up for remote, semi-autonomous, and even fully autonomous operation using Command for Underground.
We’ll post an update once CAT makes the full rundown of official specs public, which should be sooner rather than later. When that happens, we’ll see exactly how this big burrowing CAT stacks up against the competition from Sandvik, Epiroc, and Komatsu. In the meantime, let us know what you think of CAT’s newest electric drive machine in the comments.
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