EXECUTIVE REPORT
Electrifying Bauma
This year’s big Bauma construction equipment exhibition revealed a significant number of pre-production and concept machines. Who better to check them out than Consultant Plant Editor, Nick Johnson?
Held every three years at the Munich exhibition centre in Germany, the seven-day Bauma construction equipment show was bigger than ever this April. Utilising all the venue’s 18 main halls and every bit of the outside area usually deployed for car parking, it provided an overall exhibition space of 614,000m² for some 3,700 exhibitors from 63 countries. And it attracted a record attendance of over 620,000 visitors.
Being able to see some very innovative equipment rewarded those people who made the trip. Electric compact excavators were much in evidence, with concept machines shown by both established makers of this equipment and engine/component suppliers such as Cummins and Dana.
Yanmar brought over a concept electric mini excavator to Europe from Japan especially for Bauma. Displayed in operation within a special 6.0m by 6.0m cube, aptly called the eCubator, this 1.0- tonne class machine was
The Yanmar eFuzion operating autonomously inside the ‘eCubator’.
itself designated the eFuzion - a name combining ‘e’ for electric and ‘Fu’ for the future. Equipped with two packs of Lithium-ion batteries, the eFuzion uses electrical actuators rather than hydraulic cylinders to operate its boom, dipper arm and bucket. It has been developed by Yanmar’s robotics research team to show how autonomous construction machinery may operate in the future.
Amazed onlookers
Within the eCubator, the all-electric eFuzion was started by wireless remote control before it worked autonomously. It amazed onlookers by being able to work by itself to select red balls from a box of red and white balls to build up the Yanmar logo composed of red balls in another box. The clever machine has now returned to Japan for further development.
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Takeuchi has been a pioneer of electric mini excavator development and it revealed its latest model: the 1.8-tonne class TB220e. It comes as standard with a 25kWh Lithium-ion battery that is claimed to deliver the same performance as the 1,770kg TB216 diesel version.
Takeuchi’s latest electric mini excavator is this 1.8-tonne class TB220e.
Another newcomer from Takeuchi was the more conventional 6,710kg TB370 powered by a 42.4kW (57.7hp) Kubota diesel engine. Both new models will be shown at Plantworx in June (our preview of which starts on page 35).
As predicted, Komatsu used Bauma to unveil its first all-electric compact excavator. It exhibited a 4,730kg machine that is powered by the same easy-maintenance battery used in the manufacturer’s FE-series electric forklift trucks.
Volvo’s dynamic duo
Amid much excitement, Volvo dramatically uncovered two new electric compact machines on the second morning of the Show. They comprised the 2.5-tonne ECR25 Electric mini excavator and the 4.9-tonne L25 Electric compact wheel loader - the latter due to appear at Plantworx. This duo demonstrates the company’s future intention to replace diesel engines with electric motors in its EC15 to EC27 mini excavators and L20 to L28 compact wheel loaders from mid 2020.
Great interest was shown in Volvo’s ECR25 Electric mini and the L25 Electric compact loader.
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