Some cars abound with unsuspected performances. But they take so much fuel for their services that it would make environmentalists nauseous. Even though they are actually electric cars.
Today we have another special contribution for the protectors of the planet, this time from wealthy America. After all, the wealth and construction and technical prowess can be seen at first glance. A surface mining truck the size of a family home (larger family home) and with the ability to haul that home away in the finale just “on your back”. And what’s best about it – it’s basically an ecological electric car. How is it possible? Simple, just count a few numbers. Let’s take a look at that.
The biggest surprise I could prepare for you
The Terex Titan was introduced in 1974 at the American Mining Congress in Las Vegas. General Motors, which owns Terex, prepared a really big surprise for the audience. Bigger than any of them expected. A dumper, i.e. a large-volume truck for surface mines with a total weight of just over 548 tons and the ability to carry 320 tons of cargo. In one go, must be delivered. Nobody made anything bigger until then, the German Liebherr T282B is yet to come, as well as the Belarusian Belaz 75710.
In order to actually understand how these little things work and why it pays for their owners to pour unimaginable quantities of fuel into seemingly bottomless tanks, we need to “empathize” with the owner of an open-pit mine for a moment. What do you need to uncover the riches hidden under meter-long layers of clay and sand and make sense of your business? You need a really big excavator, capable of picking up as much material as possible in one go. And you need a car that will take it all to a dump as quickly as possible, dump it there and get it back as soon as possible.
Despite the crazy consumption, they are actually economical
It is clear from this simple definition that it is about time. And the cost, of course. If you have a car that takes 320 tons in one haul, you don’t need 20 cars that take 20×16 tons. And you don’t need 20 drivers, just one. But most importantly: 20 cars would have to wait a disproportionately long time to be loaded with one excavator. And 20 excavators doesn’t make sense. Therefore, these giants are basically an economic choice, thanks to which it is possible to significantly speed up mining. And even if it sounds a little absurd with regard to their (fuel and other) requirements, then make it cheaper.
And that they are really not shy about fuel. The Terex Titan we are describing consumes approximately 20 liters per one mile (1.6 km), which when converted to 100 km comes out to – 1250 liters per 100 kilometers. Does it still bother you that your car drives for 8l/100km? However, the work of these giants is not counted in kilometers, but for engine hours, and every unnecessary downtime reduces the economic benefit. It is possible that 100 kilometers somewhere in the mine will mean 5 hours of work and the movement of thousands of tons of earth. And that already makes sense.
You need a tank to change the oil
To move such volumes, the Terex Titan is equipped with a 16-cylinder GM engine with a volume of 169 liters (downsizing was obviously not a problem at the time) with turbocharging and intercooling. By the way, there were 1172 liters of coolant in the car. Where did we leave the liter bottle from Fridex? In that context, the performance of 3300 horsepower cannot be surprising, nor the oil filling of 1513 liters of oil. However, in similar cars (including this one), the internal combustion engine drives the generator, and the drive itself is taken care of by electric motors in the individual wheels.
Let’s not forget: the tanks have a volume of 7000 liters. It is probably refueled directly from the tanker, because this car will not fit under the roof of any gas station anyway. The Terex Titan can travel 560 kilometers on one tank, which takes into account what the main routes are (from the depths of the mine up and to the nearest dump or soil treatment) is a surprisingly sufficient radius of action. In short, this is a very special use of a very special working machine, built for effect as a minimum, efficiency as a maximum.
The particulate filter would turn black in one shift
Still, the Titan had been in its first operation for just four years (from 1975 to 1979) when it was purchased from GM for a relatively modest $200,000 (roughly $550,000 today) by Canadian mining company Westar Mining. Where it served until its decommissioning in 1991. Today you can see it on display (but without engine) in Sparwood, Canada. And the two bears? It is, of course, an exaggeration, but the truth remains that there really aren’t particulate filters in similar (older) cars.
And tons and tons of soot had to roll out of their “chimney”. When we consider that the Titan’s operation was basically non-stop from 1974 to 1991 (except for refueling and scheduled shutdowns), because otherwise these cars don’t even run, the volume of carbon black produced is also “titanic”. And so-called black carbon is transported hundreds of kilometers from this soot, and settles on snow and ice. As a result, the white blanket of the Arctic has darkened considerably in recent years and reduced its ability to reflect light.
And thus, paradoxically, it contributed to warming, ultimately leading to increased melting of snow and ice. This then deprives the natural inhabitants of the polar regions of the possibility of finding food, but above all of the environment itself to live. So the Terex Titan did not excel in this regard. Even though it’s actually a half-electric car.
