Not every Chinese coal region chose swap. Shanxi — the province that supplies a quarter of China’s coal — built much of its electric truck logistics on plain charging, and the reasons are as instructive as the technology. This case matters for European readers precisely because it complicates the narrative that Chinese electrification equals battery swap.

The corridor anatomy. Shanxi’s coal moves from mine to railhead and power plant along fixed provincial corridors, often 50–150 km per leg — longer than typical port loops, shorter than trunk routes, heavily laden one way and empty back. Provincial air-quality programmes pushed mine operators and logistics contractors toward electric fleets early, but the infrastructure answer that fit was mostly depot and corridor charging: overnight charging at mine-mouth depots where trucks stand idle between shifts, opportunity charging at railheads during loading queues. The energy economics work because coal logistics has natural dwell time built in — a truck that waits 40 minutes to load doesn’t need a five-minute swap; it needs a plug.

Where swap did land. The highest-intensity loops — double-shift, short-leg, around-the-clock transfers between adjacent facilities — took swap trucks, and swap operators including Qiyuan and Qiji list Shanxi deployments. But the province’s default remained charging, for a reason European planners will recognise: capex discipline. A charging post costs a fraction of a swap station, needs no battery inventory, and works with every truck brand in a fragmented contractor market. When the duty cycle provides the dwell time, charging’s simplicity wins on merit, not on inertia.

The operational lessons published by operators. Shanxi fleets were among the earliest to quantify electric drivetrain advantages in mountain mining country: regenerative braking on loaded descents meaningfully returns energy (and saves brake wear — a real maintenance line in mining), and electric trucks’ torque characteristics suit steep mine-road grades. Winter range penalties in the province’s cold north reinforced the oversize-the-pack discipline. As with other Chinese regional data, specific fleet counts are operator-reported estimates rather than audited registries — flagged accordingly.

What transfers to Europe. Shanxi is the case to cite when a swap vendor claims charging can’t handle mining or heavy regional duty. It can — when dwell time is engineered into the schedule and charging is sited where trucks wait anyway. European quarry, aggregates, waste and agricultural logistics share this profile: fixed loops, queue time at both ends, depot nights. The decision discipline is the same one our framework encodes: measure dwell time first; if trucks wait, charge them where they wait; if they never wait, that’s when swap earns its premium.