Liebherr has put an all-electric excavator in the 250-tonne class on sale for mining customers around the world. The R 9300 G8-E swaps the diesel engine of its sibling machine for an 850-kilowatt electric drivetrain, and the company says it digs at the same pace. Liebherr dated the announcement Nov. 2, 2026, from its Colmar, France, base.
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The R 9300 G8-E and what a 250-tonne class means
Mining excavators are sorted by weight bands, and the 250-tonne band is one of the workhorse sizes for large open-pit operations, matched to haul trucks that carry loads of a similar scale. A machine in that band is not a toy for a quarry: it loads a haul truck in a handful of bucket passes and runs through multiple shifts a day. Liebherr’s new electric model sits in that band by design, because it is built on the existing diesel R 9300 G8 platform rather than on a clean-sheet frame.
Electrek reported the launch on Nov. 6, calling it a new 250-tonne electric model that widens Liebherr’s electric excavator range. Liebherr’s own announcement of the R 9300 G8-E uses the wording “250-tonne class” and does not print an operating weight for the electric version.
The diesel donor machine does carry numbers. Liebherr’s R 9300 G8 product page lists an operating weight of 252 tonnes for the backhoe configuration and 253 tonnes for the face shovel, with bucket capacities of 16.5 and 16.0 cubic meters. The electric version is offered in the same two configurations, backhoe and face shovel, after field validation.
An 850-kilowatt drivetrain fed from the grid
The electric drivetrain is rated at 850 kilowatts, roughly 1,140 horsepower, and is designed to IEC standards for supply voltages of 6 kilovolts or 6.6 kilovolts. That is a mine-grid connection rather than a plug-in charger. The machine carries on-board batteries, but Electrek describes it as primarily driven by grid power, which is why Liebherr also offers an optional autonomous cable reel to manage the high-voltage trailing cable as the excavator moves along a bench.
Hydraulic power and bucket capacity match the diesel machine.
The practical case for a trailing-cable machine is easiest to see on a mine that already runs a high-voltage grid for crushers and conveyors. Diesel has to be trucked to the pit, stored, metered and burned on site, while an electric shovel draws what it needs from the same network that feeds the rest of the operation. The tradeoff is mobility: a cable limits where the machine can dig, and moving it takes planning, which is the problem the optional cable reel is meant to ease.
Liebherr states the electric model is “designed to provide the same level of productivity as its diesel counterpart.” The company lists three operating differences: no direct exhaust emissions where the machine works, fewer drivetrain components than a combustion engine, which can cut maintenance in some applications, and lower vibration in the cab. A load-sensing hydraulic control called Liebherr Power Efficiency is standard, and the machine works with the company’s digital mining tools, including the Bucket Filling Assistant and the Skyview vision system.
The R 9300 G8-E in Liebherr’s electric mining line
Liebherr is not new to electric excavators at this scale. In 2024 it delivered a 400-tonne-class R 9400 E to the Yandi iron ore mine in Western Australia, which was BHP’s first electric excavator. Tim Day, asset president for BHP’s Western Australia Iron Ore business, said at the time that the miner was working to electrify most of its mining fleet that currently runs on diesel. That machine also used Liebherr’s autonomous cable reel, the same accessory now offered on the 250-tonne model, and Liebherr-Australia’s Brian Boitano framed electrification in the release as central to the company’s identity. The Yandi unit was commissioned at the start of 2024 and announced that August, which gives the G8-E a track record of roughly two years of electric excavator operation to draw on.
The new model fills the size step below it. A mine-planning write-up from Geomechanics.io places the R 9300 G8-E between the R 9400 E and the R 9800 E in Liebherr’s electric range and notes that it can be paired with the T 264, T 274 and T 284 trolley-assist haul trucks. Electrek adds that Liebherr began converting diesel mining excavators to electric in limited numbers in 2024, so the G8-E is the first 250-tonne-class model the company lists as a standard production offering.
Buyers will weigh the machine on cycle times and availability rather than on its drivetrain alone. Liebherr’s claim of diesel-level productivity is a manufacturer statement, and the Electrek report repeats it without independent test data. Field results from the early deployments, including how often the cable reel and the on-board batteries are used in practice, will say more than the brochure language does.
Several figures a mine planner would want are absent from the announcement. Liebherr does not publish the electric machine’s operating weight, its battery capacity or a price, and a press contact, Swann Blaise, is the only named person on the release. Whether the G8-E lands near the diesel model’s 252 tonnes is therefore an inference from the shared platform, not a number Liebherr has stated.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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