Deep inside a mine, the workhorses are enormous diesel dump trucks, hauling tens of tonnes of rock up steep gradients, shift after shift, in dust and heat. They are some of the hardest-working machines on earth — and some of the thirstiest. Replacing the diesel in a machine that size, without losing any of its muscle, is one of heavy industry’s toughest engineering challenges. A company from Mysuru has just taken a major step towards solving it.
The company is BEML Limited, and the machine is the BH60-EV, which the company describes as India’s first indigenously designed and developed 60-ton electric dump truck. Unveiled on 30 September 2026 at BEML’s Mysuru Complex and virtually launched by Chairman and Managing Director Shri Shantanu Roy, the BH60-EV brings electric power to a class of vehicle that has run on diesel for generations.
A thousand kilowatt-hours of muscle
The BH60-EV is built around a high-performance Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM) integrated with a rugged gearbox and a 1,000 kWh high-voltage lithium-ion battery pack — a battery roughly ten times the size of the one in a large electric car, engineered for the brutal duty cycles of a mine. It offers a payload capacity of 54,500 kg with a rock body and a volumetric body capacity of 36.4 cubic metres.
The electric powertrain is the point. The company says it delivers high tractive effort and instant torque, letting the truck work efficiently on gradients where a diesel truck would be labouring through its gears. The platform is designed for improved energy efficiency, a high power-to-weight ratio, strong acceleration and gradeability — the qualities that decide whether a truck earns its keep on a mine’s haul road.
Why a mine is the perfect place for electric
Mining is where the economics of electric power shine brightest. A dump truck runs near-constantly, burns fuel at a prodigious rate, and spends much of its life climbing loaded and descending empty — a cycle where regenerative braking can recover energy on the way down. BEML says the BH60-EV is designed to deliver 40–60% lower operating costs than conventional diesel-powered equipment, while cutting around 130 tonnes of CO₂ emissions per vehicle each year, depending on operating conditions. With zero tailpipe emissions during operation, it also cleans the air for the people working around it.
BEML has thought beyond the truck itself. The company also offers a complete charging station solution designed to be compatible with site electrical infrastructure and scalable for fleet operations, so a mine can adopt electric heavy equipment as a system rather than as a single machine.
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Built for the hardest shift, and for the operator
A mining truck’s cab is its operator’s office for long, punishing shifts, and the BH60-EV’s cabin is designed around that reality. It is spacious and ergonomically designed, and it incorporates a Roll-Over Protective Structure (ROPS), emergency steering and sealed oil-cooled disc brakes — the safety engineering that matters when a 60-ton machine works on loose ground at the edge of a pit.
An electric portfolio, not a one-off
The BH60-EV is not BEML’s first step into electric heavy equipment — it is the next step in a deliberate programme. It follows the company’s 35-ton electric dump truck, launched on 10 April 2026, extending the same indigenous electric platform into a higher-capacity class for mining and infrastructure work. The company is also developing further electric dump truck technologies, including the BH150E prototype and the BH205E electric dump truck under trials, according to its Mysuru Truck Division.
That matters because BEML is no startup experimenting with a prototype. It is a Schedule A company under the Ministry of Defence with a legacy spanning six decades, operating across Defence & Aerospace, Mining & Construction, and Rail & Metro, with manufacturing facilities in Bengaluru, Kolar Gold Fields, Mysuru and Palakkad. Its Mysuru Truck Division already manufactures dump trucks from 35-tonne to 100-tonne capacities, alongside motor graders, water sprinklers and other mining and construction equipment. The BH60-EV puts that manufacturing depth behind India’s electric mining future.
From the diesel roar of the haul road to the quiet torque of a thousand kilowatt-hours, the BH60-EV shows Indian heavy engineering moving exactly where the world’s mines need it to go: bigger, cleaner, and built at home.
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