Hope every body has had a happy holiday period and a good start to the new year.

With the global market slow down gaining more effect, Slowing down in China, Slowing down in North America. When the market pikes up it will be a different market from to days market. Many customers will see sustainability as their biggest driver when looking at new equipment. This can be seen before the slow down when for the first time electric counter balanced forklift out sold diesel counter balance forklifts in the core 2.5 ton - 3.5 tom market. This market will see continued growth when the markets pick back up in 21 / 23. If you were to look at a 3 ton electric forklift that has a lithium iron battery the range could be 8 hours on a 2 hour charge depending on battery size.

The problem for the market is what to do on truck over 6 ton even though it is only a small percentage of overall truck sales but yet offers the most profitability for OEM's Electric trucks won't make a big impact in fact around 90% of trucks sold over 6 ton are still diesel and customers looking for a sustainable solution have a very little choice, in the 6 - 8 ton range you have Toyota, Linde, Hyster , Carer, Kalmar all othering electric trucks from 10 - 16 ton you have Kalmar, Carer Heli and Hangcha offer trucks mainly with lead acid batteries and over 16 ton you have Wiggins offering electric trucks with Lithium iron batteries.

So how will these trucks add up as against there diesel counter part , well in truth not very well. If you were to take a 7 ton forklift with a 90 kw lithium iron battery the range 6 hours then you would need a 2 hour charging time and the amount of electricity put in would be the same amount as 120 normal houses would used in the same 2hours. This askes the question of if a company has a small number of the say jus five they would need the same amount of power to power 600 homes with in the two hour period. This could also cause power surges. Then there is the problem of cooling the batteries normally in a car they won't have to go from empty batteries to full charge every day. The more you charge the batteries the more chance of a fire starting with lithium iron batteries. There are a number of fires daily being reported caused by overheating lithium iron batteries fro phones laptops to even cars.