I bought a container full of Chinese electric excavators. Here's what showed up
38 comments
·February 4, 2025serviceberry
bryanlarsen
> An excavator or a tractor deprecates far more slowly, and many private owners keep them for 20-30 years.
There are still tractors and excavators from the 50's in regular use.
> Battery-powered equipment will probably need new battery packs before that.
It's a tiny 10kWh battery, $1000 - $2000. It looks like about 6 hours / cycle, so that's ~4000 of work time, longer if you don't mind reduced capacity. That's quite comparable to a diesel which needs an overhaul every ~10,000 hours.
Shog9
The battery life is probably not an issue in practice; the author estimates 5 hours per charge - assuming a very conservative 2000-cycle life for the pack, that's 10,000 hours of work, which is quite respectable.
Yes, a private owner might keep a tractor for decades, but probably not using it for hours every single day and definitely not without some pretty significant repairs; the cost of a new 200ah battery pack is nothing compared to a diesel engine rebuild.
I... Tend to suspect other parts on these things will be unacceptably worn long before the battery craps out.
sampton
There should be a park for adults with bunch of these machines. Beats therapy.
davidsojevic
I once looked into this and there's actually more than a handful of theme parks like this, one of which even has a few locations:
georgeburdell
Huh, I thought Peppa Pig just made up Diggerland (I have young children)
echelon
Or other permutations of the idea:
m463
I'm reminded of the episode of malcolm in the middle where they bring a giant wood chipper home. And then start feeding random stuff into it...
jcgrillo
there are many parks, be the change you want to see in the world
GauntletWizard
About ten years ago I did https://digthisvegas.com/ - I had a great time, definitely recommend.
escapecharacter
Went to this last year. Had the time of my life.
retox
The "Here's what showed up" is unnecessary; he bought a container of Chinese electric excavators.
mh-
Anyone who has ordered frequently from AliExpress (or Temu, Wish, ..) will tell you that line is not unnecessary.
eudhxhdhsb32
Well it suggests the main topic will be discussion of what he received and that it may not have been as expected.
Without that, maybe the topic is about something like the customs and payment process.
twothamendment
Any excavator beats a shovel!
I'm just a homeowner with a decent size piece of land and lots of trees. The ground is glacial till/drumlin, so rocks vary from gravel, to bowling balls and table size boulders.
I have a 7,000 lb excavator and couldn't imagine using smaller for my needs, but there is a right size for everyone!
I'd love it if mine were electric. I don't use it all of the time or all day, but the smoking old diesel is not the part of it that I enjoy.
mttch
These would be great in the UK where we have smaller gardens and poor access. Typically access to rear gardens in semi-detached housing stock is down a narrow path between then houses. For terraced houses I’ve seen someone drive a mini-digger through the house to access the garden.
jumploops
My toddler is absolutely obsessed with excavators.
We've seen the famed "no-name diesel-powered Chinese mini-excavator bought at auction for $5,200" and I'd be lying if I say the thought hasn't crossed my mind ;)
An all electric excavator seems even cooler... now to leave the city.
dhosek
Kind of reminds me of being on vacation with my family in Michigan and the only place with cell reception was a construction site nearby. While talking with my wife who was in Morocco at the time, I climbed inside a front loader to avoid the mosquitos and then discovered I couldn’t open the door from the inside to get back out. I don’t remember how I managed to finally escape my predicament.
eru
Perhaps you didn't, and you are still inside?
usefulcat
Same here with my oldest kid at that age. I've definitely seen every episode of Mighty Machines, most multiple times.
genter
60 years ago, a super shitty car company from Japan called Toyota starting importing their pieces of shit to us. They were small, weird, with a poorly translated manual. And they were shit. And Toyota kept improving, and learning from their mistakes, and got to know the US market better. And now they are one of the largest corporations on Earth.
This is why when I see a $1 stepper motor on AliExpress, or a YouTube review of some cheap Vevor tool, or a shipping container of electric miniexcavators, I realize this is China being a teenager, learning how to be an adult. And they are a lot bigger than Japan, and are going to have a bigger impact than Toyota, or Sony, or Mitsubishi.
And this is why I hate Trump. Because he is completely right about how much China is gaining on us, but he has no understanding of how or why, and is therefore doing absolutely nothing to actually help us maintain our manufacturing power.
CraigJPerry
Does China not end up running headlong into the problem of demographics? It’s a structural problem that the US isn’t really facing.
US: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_S...
China: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China
That’s like a 1/3rd reduction in workforce.
maxglute
Both JP and SKR increased gdp/productivity ~10-20x when they had <2 TFR by increasing % of workforce to skilled/tertiary (advanced economies have skilled workforce approaching 70/80%). PRC is at ~20% while adding more skilled workforce than roughly OECD combined. Structurally China will add more just STEM in next 20 years than US projected to increase population, i.e. if every US newborn and immigrant (assuming current levels) are STEM, US will merely match PRC STEM generation. PRC also adding 80m other tertiary or vocational skilled ontop of that. For strategic competition, the structural demographic trend you should compare is PRC peaking at roughly 2x-3x US skilled workers who will be in workforce for 50+ years, i.e. greatest high skill demographic divident in recorded history. Meanwhile they'll be shedding 100s of millions of low productive workers. Imagine PRC workforce profile adding 5 japans and losing 3 nigerias. Another caveat being about 200m of population decline will be inefficient farming households that can be effectively replaced with 20m modern ag workers. Or 600m low productive (bottom 2 quantiles who are undereducated / old / left behind by modernization) contributes to like 5% of GDP, i.e. their consumption / productivity is comparable to a few 10s million of high value workers. Then consider PRC is also adding more industrial robotics / automation than RoW combined. The question is whether US can compete with PRC with multiple times more skilled talent and larger industrial base than they have now, both increasing at rates that US is structurally unable to close gap on for decades short of AGI / von neumann machine hailmary (which granted is a real possiblity, but then we're also in a world where PRC is spitting out incubated humans).
vkou
Given recent trends, the US will run headlong into the problem of political collapse long before China runs into a demographic collapse.
UncleOxidant
And a lot of the things he's doing are going to make things worse for us.
bozhark
If only the leadership lead
nubinetwork
> toyota
And yet the latest supra's are just badge engineered BMW's, and a lot of their cars are being recalled for engine problems, or because the wheels fall off...
maxglute
Just a few purple panels away from constructicon paint scheme.
rishikeshs
What about maintenance? Is it something you can do locally?
thdhhghgbhy
Seems wasteful to me.
Livanskoy
Doesn't seem wasteful to him.
bryanlarsen
The guy is reselling $6000 excavators for $20,000. So he's doing OK.
He's not going to get rich from it, he's spending thousands per excavator to import it, plus a lot of time. It certainly doesn't seem wasteful.
mythrwy
As a person who had dug a lot of holes in his life, these look completely awesome!
I'd like to see a more substantial version, these look like they would last about 15 uses before breaking and where do you get replacement parts?
icegreentea2
In case it's not clear, the article writer actually runs a business semi-customizing these from China, importing them, and selling in America (so yes, this is technically an ad).
The linked through site from the company says that they stock spare parts in the US (in Florida). Their warranty is for 1 year/1000 hours operation.
moron4hire
I can kind of see going in on something like this with my neighbor, as we both are rather new home owners trying to terraform our backyards into our own things, but ultimately I think I'd rather build something out of the Open Source Ecology project: https://www.opensourceecology.org/
0_____0
Maybe Earth will be uninhabitable someday and we'll have to terraform it then, but today what you're calling terraforming is just called 'landscaping.'
For folks who haven't operated an excavator, the trade-off with these mini-excavators isn't necessarily that they're underpowered. There are two other problems.
First, they are very wobbly and you're gonna be limited by that. You really need a fair amount of surface contact and a robust counterweight when you're extending the arm and moving boulders, pulling out roots, or digging into hard soil.
Second, you might look at specs and say "oh, cool, digging depth of 5 ft, I don't need more!". Except, this is attainable in one specific (and awkward) position of the excavator's boom and arm. It's less than that across most of the movement range.
Another thing to keep in mind that this is not like buying a car. An excavator or a tractor deprecates far more slowly, and many private owners keep them for 20-30 years. A diesel excavator will need DIY maintenance and simple repairs, but it should hold up for life. Battery-powered equipment will probably need new battery packs before that. Just something to keep in mind when figuring out the pros and cons. If you're in the suburbs, noise is a concern, but then, you honestly don't need your own excavator...