On a dusty afternoon in the northern reaches of China, dozens of giant trucks queue to fill up on coal for washing and processing. Others wait to take away tons of waste rocks and dirt. It’s a common sight at any large, open-pit operation — except the juggernauts at the Yimin mine in Inner Mongolia are moving without a human being in sight, part of a rapidly growing, nationwide fleet of autonomous vehicles.
Many of the men who once drove the trucks for state-owned China Huaneng Group Co. now work away from the coalface, often as safety supervisors…
