Beeker:It sounds like you have a handle on it. The first 15 years or so in this industry I did eletric lifts only.I have branched out into gas ,lp and diesel.Eletrics have their place and ic units have theirs.I had a customer that put 15,000 hours on units in three years with just minimal problems (ic units). They were bought on cost,not price.They are replaced on a regular basis as they are leased.Swap out propane bottle and go. With batteries somebody is always trying to get out of swapping out the batteries,watering the batteries or dropping them. Then the eletric units will not take the abuse a LP unit will take. We all know thar operators NEVER push ,shove ,run the batteries down to levels that have never been seen before and so on. Battery units have their place but in a hard usage enviroment lp units will always be lower cost in operation. Lets see a 20,000 hour eletric
drive motor. Never have seen one. Then you could purchase 2 lp motors for the price of some eletric drive motors.