Another huge advantage for the BYD product is their battery warranty which is 10 years / 20,000 hours - FULL battery replacement (with NO fine warranty print). This is important to point out because as other lift manufactures are playing catch up with BYD they are "trying" to introduce lithium-ion batteries, whereas BYD is using lithium iron phosphate batteries. To most people this does not sound like a big difference but realistically it's a day and night comparison with two of the largest factors being:

HEAT - In a nutshell lithium-ion is a good battery technology (due to it's weight and size charistics) for small portable devices that do not consume a lot of power (ie. laptops, cell phones, etc) but it's major weakness is that it does not manage it's heat well which can and will lead to a thermal runaway (hoverboards, samsung phones). Iron phosphate (LiFePO4) on the other hand (due to it's chemistry) has thermal stability and operates at a room temperature without issues.

DURABILITY - The durability/life of a battery is based on the number of charge/discharge cycles it will survive through. Iron Phosphate outperforms lithium-ion with over double the amount of charge/discharge cycles along with also providing a much longer self life (holding charge) if not being used.

I won't even get into all the safety/environmental differences other than mentioning that lithium-ion uses a fun little chemical called cobalt...

Due to these differences (and MANY more) it is easy to understand why we have yet to see any lithium-ion batteries that are even coming close to the warranty being offered by BYD.

BurtKwok-

My understanding is that Jungheinrich (and by association MCFA) are actively promoting Lithium powered Class 1,2,3 trucks in the EU and NA market. Hyster-Yale also announced an 8 or 10 (sorry can't remember, but I did read the presser) Ton Lithium Powered truck for the EU market only (for now). H-Y also use Lithium for their 4000# pallet trucks. Raymond has a development agreement with Brammo and Crown has a development agreement with Alelion.

BYD's strategic advantage is that they have designed their truck around Li-Ion use. The traditional manufacturers are going to have some hurdles to overcome...do they run two production lines (Lead-Acid trucks and Lithium trucks)? Very expensive. It's likely that they keep to business as usual, and secure a drop-in Lithium supplier for their Lead-Acid trucks, but again, they will suffer a capacity disadvantage, because of BYD's design. I pencil out about 43 kW of power with BYD's 80volt, 600AH set up. In a 6000# 4 wheel sitdown. The best we can do with a Lead-Acid version is about 27 kW. Check my math, these are rough numbers.

I've commented on Fuel Cells, so let me just summarize and write they present many challenges...and I understand the 30% Federal Tax Credit was not passed, so there's another one...cost.

When will the patents run out, my understanding was they only last 10 years.

From the people I have spoken to they all say the BYD truck is a good truck,as BYD own the pattents on the battery technology I can't see the mainstream manufacture getting these batteries.


As for fuel cell this market will grow now Toyota are investing in this area

With the amount of tech going into automotive batteries, i feel this is where the forklift world will be heading, as they usually hang on the coat tails of the automotive world.
Forklifts and big heavy batteries are ideal bed fellows, with good battery ratios and correct battery maintenance and charging management, i feel it's all a bit of a gimmick.
The BYD truck is interesting, but if it's so good, why are none of the mainstream truck companies jumping on the bandwagon, this is not to do down BYD or the Chinese industry, but the industry is so close knit, i cannot see one manufacturer having an massive advantage over another for any significant length of time.

The BYD truck is good but i would not say it was a solution to the problem. Charging time of the battery is still a problem for some customers and its only on small forklifts what about above 5 ton. Quite an interesting point on the fuel cell tho , Do you see this becoming less of a problem with fuel cells becoming better

So far all of my customers who are using hydrogen fuel cells are not thrilled with it. Although the solution looks and sounds good on paper, be sure to do your homework before moving forward with this solution. The two main complaints I have heard from customers are that the upfront costs of getting setup are through the roof (many hidden costs) and the maintenance (upkeep) of the fuel cells thus far has been a nightmare! One customer has such a high level of maintenance on their fuel cells that a technician from the fuel cell manufacture is onsite 40+ hours a week.
Anyone who is looking at hydrogen fuel cells as a solution, I would strongly recommend also look into BYD (Iron Phosphate battery) forklifts as their solution provides the same perks as hydrogen but without all of the headaches.