Full Self Hauling: Volvo moves 3 million tonnes of Earth, autonomously

Volvo Autonomous Solutions has reached a clear operational milestone: its fleet of ultra heavy-duty autonomous trucks and mining equipment has hauled three million tonnes of material without human drivers, crossing that mark at Boliden’s Garpenberg mine in Sweden in summer 2026. The program began pilot deployments with Boliden Garpenberg and Brønnøy Kalk in 2023, hit one million tonnes by 2025, and scaled rapidly thereafter. Volvo markets the offering as Autona/earth, a factory-assembled, bundled service that combines trucks, software, on-site infrastructure, and operational support so mines and quarries can deploy autonomous hauling without becoming autonomy specialists. Volvo CE and VAS present this milestone as proof of maturity and customer value, with senior engineers citing years of collaboration and real-world scaling.

The wider significance is economic: autonomous, electric-capable haulage fits mining’s fixed routes, heavy energy use, and 24/7 operations, where displaced diesel produces direct, measurable savings that justify the investment in autonomy and electrification. This success joins other industrial autonomy efforts - such as large-scale automated mining projects elsewhere - and demonstrates how industrial sectors may lead EV and autonomy adoption because predictable routes and high utilization create straightforward return-on-investment cases. Volvo’s packaged service model aims to accelerate uptake by lowering technical barriers for operators.