Than I would consider some european brands (Linde, Jungheinrich, Still).

Advantages:
- good quality, low defect factor,
- lower maintenance costs (the inspection every 1000 hours),
- high residual value (value after rental period),
- high standards of service support (well, I don't know the S.African reality, but according to my knowledge Linde dealership is doing pretty well there).

The hazards:
- high skills required from service technicians,
- difficult access to the diagnostic software.

Once, during my MBA studies I made an analysis of investment for IC forklift rental bussiness.
Comparing several brands (Linde, Still, Jungheinrich, Yale, Toyota, Doosan) I have got the best NPV and IRR values for Linde, than Still, Yale, Jungheinrich, Toyota, Doosan).

This was, of course, based upon european/polish conditions (taxes, labour costs, parts availability etc.

For the electric or warehouse trucks the order could be different, but I didn't analyse it.