Are you the kind of person that regularly has major demolition jobs that require a level of aggression and violence that hand tools simply can’t provide, but you also care about the environment and not destroying the only lifeboat humanity currently has? Then, boy, do I have the perfect electric bulldozer for you.
It’s also perfect for this week’s Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column, though I’d call this one more awesome than weird.
Weighing in at 18,750 kilograms (or just over 41,000 freedom units), this Big Bertha of an e-bulldozer is ready for some heavy lifting. Or make that heavy scraping.
Sure, it might weigh barely half of a D9 Caterpillar, but what it lacks in poundage, it makes up for with a heart of gold. And lithium. It carries a 240 kWh battery on board for all-day mess-you-up dozing needs. Well, not really “all day.” More like four to five hours of heavy-duty dozing and six to eight hours of “medium to light working,” which I imagine is the category that terrorizing the neighborhood falls under.
That’s still a pretty big battery at around four times the size found in an average electric car – or egregiously around one times the size of the battery found in an electric HUMMER.
It carries a 145 kW (194 hp) electric motor, which frankly seems a bit underpowered for a bulldozer, but I’m going to let it slide. Since this one is already half the weight of the really big boys, having half the horsepower isn’t that unreasonable. Considering that electric motors generally outperform diesel engines of comparable power ratings, this electric opposer dozer might just be packing some real oomph.
It’s not particularly fast, with a top speed of just 10 km/h (6 mph), but it sure will look imposing as it slowly and silently rolls up on you.
The decibel rating is 76dB, which a conversion chart tells me is approximately equal to the noise of a vacuum cleaner. Somehow that’s not very helpful, and I’m just imagining this thing sounding like my knock-off Roomba as it mows down a shanty.
The Chinese vendor seems pretty proud of this thing, describing it as “the world’s first purely electric bulldozer.”
I’m not sure how true that is, with a few companies offering electric models, but I won’t hold their feet to the fire too hard if they’ll at least give me a test ride.
The only problem is I’d have to go halfway around the world to China to try it, or else fork over US $95,000 to buy my own.
Actually, that’s not a bad price at all. A D9 will run you over a million bucks, so this feels like highway robbery. Of course, the customs and freight charges you’d have to pay would also feel like highway robbery, not to mention the very real chance that you might never even get the product. So I definitely don’t recommend trying to buy your own electric bulldozer on Alibaba. In fact, I recently got scammed buying my own electric mini-excavator on Alibaba. (Full story coming soon.)
Suffice it to say that it’s probably not worth it to risk six figures (or less, as in my unfortunate mini-excavator case) on a random Chinese electric heavy equipment purchase. But at least we can all enjoy daydreaming about having our own electric bulldozer. “What’s that, HOA? My lawn is slightly overgrown onto the sidewalk? How about I just move that sidewalk for you?”
Oh, and for your viewing pleasure, I found a video of it in action. Volume warning, though.
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