Major Chinese car maker BYD has reportedly invested US$14.4 million in Shanghai-based Boonray Technology, a supplier of electric and autonomous mining trucks and associated technology.
Boonray said earlier this month it had completed a RMB1 billion (US$144m) funding round initiated in 2025 with backing from investors such as JZ Capital, Jinshui Lake Venture Capital, Shuimu Asset and Daocin Capital.
Founded in 2015, Boonray is said to have entered the mining market in China in 2018.
“We continue to find and invest globally in core technologies that will be powerful for our business,” BYD Group chief investment officer Li Qian said.
“Boonray’s full-stack technology system in the field of mine autonomous driving and green energy recharge is impressive, with solutions that hit the operational pain points of traditional mines.
“This is not only highly complementary to BYD’s core technological strengths in the field of electrification and intelligentisation [sic], but also fully compatible with our own.
“We look forward to working with Boonray Technology to deeply integrate new energy and intelligent technology and provide a more competitive Chinese solution for the green transformation of global mining.”
Boonray says a fleet of its BLEB145A1 driverless 145-tonne-payload mining trucks, coupled with its autonomous battery swap stations, recently completed 200 battery swaps in a day at a coal mine in Xinjiang, China.
“The battery swap station fully autonomously carries out battery replacement; the whole process takes no more than five minutes and the success rate is as high as 95.16%,” Boonray says.
“A second intelligent and autonomous battery swapping station is also running at a mine in Hami, Xinjiang, with a truck fleet operated by contractor Junrui Zhongyan and with the station developed together with battery technology specialist Jinmao Yilu.”
