Sodium-ion mining truck breaks cover in China

Painted in Sanyou Mining’s livery, the trucks carry Hina Battery’s 676 kWh Haixing pack on Tonly’s existing 120E mining truck platform

(Image courtesy of Hina Battery)

Hina Battery and Shaanxi Tonly Heavy Industries have delivered what they describe as the world’s first sodium-ion mining truck, handing the vehicle to Sanyou Mining in Tangshan in July. The truck runs on a 676 kWh Haixing sodium-ion battery system engineered for the dust, load and temperature swings typical of open-pit sites. For readers tracking sodium-ion’s move beyond stationary storage, the sharper story sits in how this capacity compares with Tonly’s existing lithium iron phosphate platform on the same chassis.

Inside the Haixing sodium-ion battery system

The Haixing system first appeared in March 2025, when Hina Battery quoted cell energy density above 165 Wh/kg. That figure sits well below the 205 Wh/kg the International Energy Agency now attributes to the latest LFP cells. The gap explains why the mining truck’s pack tops out at 676 kWh rather than matching lithium capacity on the same platform.

Hina Battery says the pack supports fast charging from a low state of charge to full in 20 to 25 minutes and holds more than 8,000 cycles under repeated fast-charging use. That duty cycle suits a vehicle running short, repeated loops within a mine boundary rather than long highway stints.

Sodium-ion cells typically shed less capacity in cold conditions than lithium chemistries, easing the thermal management burden mine operators face in northern China. Hina Battery demonstrated that trait separately in June through a FAW Jiefang heavy truck trial. That vehicle, a 339 kWh J6P tractor, covered more than 15,000 kilometres over almost seven months and retained above 90% usable capacity at minus 40 degrees Celsius.

Sodium-ion mining truck versus its diesel and LFP predecessors

Tonly already sells an LFP version of the TLE120 platform, and that variant carries an 801 kWh pack. Swapping to sodium-ion cuts available energy by roughly 16% on paper, a trade-off procurement teams will need to weigh against the mine’s actual haul distances and duty cycle.

In passenger applications, that same energy density gap feeds the range anxiety limiting sodium-ion adoption. The IEA puts sodium-ion cells at up to 175 Wh/kg against up to 205 Wh/kg for the latest LFP cells, translating to roughly 350 kilometres of range for an average SUV compared with 400 to 600 kilometres on lithium chemistries. A mining truck circulating within a pit boundary never approaches those distances, which is why Hina Battery and Tonly chose this application to prove the technology at scale.

Against the diesel trucks Tonly’s fleet has traditionally supplied, the comparison is more straightforward. Sodium-ion trucks eliminate tailpipe emissions and diesel procurement entirely, and Hina Battery frames the technology as accelerating the shift away from combustion engines on mine sites. Mining remains one of the heaviest diesel-consuming industries, and closed-loop routes inside a single site are exactly the profile electrification specialists flag as easiest to convert first.

Cost curve and policy tailwinds for sodium-ion trucks

Cost remains the open question. Hina Battery general manager Li Shujun said in March that sodium-ion cells currently run 0.5 to 0.7 yuan per Wh, above the 0.3 to 0.5 yuan lithium-ion range, though he expects the two chemistries to converge in 2027 or 2028 as sodium-ion costs fall toward 0.3 yuan per Wh. CATL’s parallel investment of 5 billion yuan ($736.5 million) into 40 GWh of new sodium-ion capacity in Fujian, disclosed in May, points to broader industry conviction that the cost gap will close.

A separate regulatory shift adds further weight to sodium-ion’s case in China. CnEVPost reported in July that lithium-ion batteries will face a 2% consumption tax from September 2026, rising to 4% from September 2027, while sodium-ion and solid-state cells stay exempt. For fleet buyers weighing total cost of ownership on closed-site vehicles like mining trucks, that tax exemption compounds the cycle-life and cold-weather advantages sodium-ion already offers.

Sanyou Mining’s deployment will generate real-world operating data that Hina Battery and Tonly say will guide further development, echoing the role the FAW Jiefang road trial played earlier this year. With CATL and Changan targeting mass-produced sodium-ion passenger cars and BYD and BAIC pushing cycle life and energy density higher, the mining truck adds a third proof point for sodium-ion outside stationary storage. Whether the chemistry moves from demonstration fleets to standard mine-site procurement will depend on how quickly that projected 2027–28 cost convergence actually arrives.

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