World’s Biggest Trucks

You’ve probably seen pictures or videos of the biggest trucks in the world. Generally used on coal mining or other large-scale mining operations all over the world, these trucks are simply monstrous!

Even empty, the Liebherr model T 282 B weighs in at a staggering 224 tons and is over 24 feet tall! It’s nearly fifty feet long with a wheelbase of 21 and a half feet. It’s capable of carrying loads of 400 tons giving it a full weight when loaded of 624 tons! The company that manufactures this truck is well-known in the mining industry but probably most famous for manufacturing this massive piece of equipment.

You won’t see this beast driving down the highway anytime soon, simply because with its massive weight – it would crush the pavement under its massive wheels (which, by the way, are each over ten feet tall and weigh four tons each). At just over $3 million each, the company only sells 25-45 of these vehicles annually to large mining and quarry companies in Australia, Chile, Wyoming and South Africa along with many other countries.

Because of its size, the truck can only travel 64 km/h but that can seem like a crazy speed to be driving something the size of a house. A massive diesel engine powers two electric motors in the rear axles of the truck, giving it incredible power on demand. One of the biggest problems the designers had to deal with involved trying to find a way to stop this beast once it got up to speed. The solution was to have special electric motors on standby to provide retarding or braking power to the main power that drives the truck. This slows the vehicle down quite quickly despite its size and is used as the main slowing method when traveling on the downward slopes of the mines. The truck also has brakes but they can burn out fairly quickly if they’re overused. Special training is required to operate these oversized trucks and only a handful of people in the world can handle them well. But if you think you have what it takes to learn to drive the world’s largest trucks, you can find the information you need by searching for driver training companies that specialize in this type of large equipment.