A good article can be found at WarehouseIQ dot com. Search for "lp vs electric" by Steve Munton. Excellent information.

I would expect the conversation will soon be the comparison between hydrogen refueling costs and lead acid battery recharging for indoor lift trucks.
Hopefuly we will soon be able to leave propane lift trucks outside where they belong.

mark p,
I agree that the battery/charger folks have some good information that can be used. But one has to be a bit careful when using it as their is a certain amount of "bias" (aka over selling) towards equipment that the terms amperes, kwH, voltage, resistance, charging stations, eyewash, battery changing systems, equalize charge etc are frequently associated with. Hey that's that's what they are "peddling".

stustu -- here is a great tool to do your comparison.

Visit the enersys battery website and click on the IC to Electric Forklift Cost Comparison

Electrics may cost more up front, but have less overall maintenance.

Some more things to consider when comparing electric trucks to IC trucks is with an electric truck you have a lift truck, battery, and charger to maintain. Lightning strikes take out transformers and circuit boards on chargers, battery cables need repair, and cells go bad in batteries. I have had customers think that electric lifts don't require any maintenance and this is far from true. Battery prices have continued to increase, and chargers are more complex than they used to be. Just look at your application and have someone show you the correct way to check and maintain your batteries. Another thing to consider is multiple shifts. You will need one battery per shift to get the most life out of your batteries and a way to change them(changeout station or battery bar). With an LP truck you will only need another tank.

Just a comment from a different perspective, with a a battery truck you are not buying your fuel costs up front. You must recharge the battery periodically and you need to add the cost of operating a charger to charge the battery and electric rates do go up periodically.
To project the cost of a recharge I have used this formula
take the kwH rating of the battery multiply it by 80% (the amount of power to be restored in an 80% discharged battery) increase that result by 10% (to account for power loss as the electricity runs thru the charger into the battery). This will give you a good estimate of the kwH that is used in a normal recharge. Multiple that times the customers charge from his power company. You will find that industrial rates are not the same from company to company - things likes total month usage can drive the rate (rates are negotiatable , except for residential folks).

On the fuel consumption of ICE engine. There is very little difference in the usage from one brand to the other as manufactures are using relatively the same size engine with close HP & torque rating curves for equivalent size models. This has been true for many decades. In fact ,the engines for many manufacturers are the same engine model & brand.(Nissan K21/K25 - in Nissan, Komatsu, Cat, Mitsu). Many years ago and on a planet far away, most lift truck companies used the Continental engine (Y112, F163, F227, etc). Certainly a company that had a decided fuel consumption rate would promote & advertise it in a quantitative manner rather than talk about it in loose terms like "for greater fuel efficency").
The only company that can prove a decided fuel consumption rate is Linde with their Hydrostatic drive axle & they promote it but you pay for it up front in acquisition costs.

sorry for the spelling errors

make sure when you are researching this you really do a good job

its like this lpg is not what makes the forklift effient it the fuel system of the forklift. and all brand have diferent motors and fual systems. making one more efficent than another.

and with electrics you are buying all your fuel up front. and how much fuel you buy is how big the battery is. and the other part is the charger. there are many options for charging the battery and depending on the type of charger you can have a difference in run times.

the two thing i tell my customers the advantage of owning electric over propane is the maint. cost are less ( less moving parts than I.C. forklifts and no emissions) and the other thing about electric is you are buying all your fuel up front so(battery) so you will have the same fuel cost over the life of your battery. the initial cost of a electric is more with buying your fuel up front. but I think total cost of ownership could be less depending on application.

or look up the Electric Power research Institute

Try this:

http://et.epri.com/lifttruckcomparison_with_cap.html