BelAZ 75710 - the world's biggest haul truck - photos

[Frank S]

Where do you suppose the point of diminishing returns is, 1000 tons, 5000 tons, total opposite of nano tech. Why not 2 250 ton trucks with less or smaller support infrastructure needed?
Eric

I wouldn't want to hazard a guess about the point of diminishing returns but loading time, transport time dumping time, and traffic control is a factor in these monsters. Maintenance and operators are about equal to the smaller vehicles just in a larger scale.
At the mines large enough to utilize these they generally have a fleet of them the same is true for mines where the smaller trucks are used. depending on the size of the mining operation there may be as many as 10 to 20 trucks being driven dumping or loading at any given time but usually many less especially for the largest trucks. 2 of the biggest trucks can actually transport more materials in a single work shift than several trucks half the size.
As the demand for product increases mining operations must increase in capacity. The amount of overburden is increasingly becoming disproportionate to the amount of pay materials available. hence the need for ever increasing equipment sizes. some minerals have already reached the million ton to 1 ton yield That's like having to move half a mountain just to get a pickup load of processed ingots of ore or rare Earth materials.