Mini excavators are raising eyebrows among manufacturers who intend to get their share of the pie within the fastest growing construction equipment category. Based on reports released by factions such as Off-Highway Research, sales of excavators globally reached the highest benchmark in 2020 with sales of these mini monsters exceeding 300,000 units.

The rise in demand was attributed to a shift in demand from developed countries (traditional markets consisted of countries in Europe, Japan and Korea) to developing nations mainly from the Middle East and Asia mainly China and India. China takes first spot according to the reports released for mini excavators which according to the report makes China by far the biggest market for mini excavators in the world.

Albeit that China has a vast labour market compared to just about any other country in the world, and the fact that mini excavators are generally used instead of manual labour, this is perhaps a surprising turnaround in the most populous country in the world where there is certainly no shortage of workers. Although all is perhaps not as it seems in the Chinese market – see the box out ‘China and mini excavators’ for more details.

The rise in the popularity of low cost mini excavator rental and ownership has provided manufacturers the opportunity to trial powering these units using electricity instead of traditional diesel power which makes them perfect for use in city centers where strict regulations regarding noise and emissions pollution are enforced. It is due to such requirements that OEMs are currently on the warpath with each other as they compete to release electric mini excavators.

For instance, the collaboration between Komatsu and Honda in 2019 to release the PC01 excavator or the initiative undertaken by Volvo in January 2019 to launch a range of mini excavators in mid-2020 that will be powered by mobile battery packs especially for their EC15 to EC27 excavator and the L20 to L28 wheeled loaders.

Volvo Construction Equipment CE has terminated their diesel engine based development on these models completely while JCBs OEM are also exploring the potential and practicality of electric power for JCB heavy equipment segment which involves their 19C-1E electric mini excavators.

Latest exploits by JCB saw the JCB 19C-1E being powered by lithium-ion batteries that delivered 20kWh of energy which according to a press release was sufficient for a full shift on a single charge. The 19C-1E was deemed as being powerful for such a compact model and perfect for urban area use with zero exhaust emissions and quieter than standard machines.

Based on the developments and the on-going rush towards going electric, the popularity of the mini excavator rental market has provided manufacturers with a vector due to their smaller size for these companies to tread research and development due to the smaller size and lower need of power.

These machines though little are powerful enough to carry out tasks that were traditionally taken on by standard diesel excavators which were rather unpopular in urbanized areas due to the noise and pollution.