I've got to agree with exalt here. Yes the BYD machine might be great but a few weeks of a demo doesn't show how it's going to be after 5 years running 24 hour shifts.
Exalt is spot on with his comments about big fleet users in the uk liking to stick with what they know. But another thing to take into account is the fact that in the uk the majority of big fleets in the uk tend to be on full term hire contracts so customers go with a brand/dealer big enough to service the contract either through breakdown ar pm work. We are one of the few big companies who buy all our own kit and we need to know it will do the job reliably after 5+ years so until these trucks are proven in the market place we will stick to what we know.
Back to the original argument I will repeat what I said about lead acid with a good battery maintenance regime, we have 4 Yale counterbalance trucks on site 18 years old and still going strong one of those is still running its original Oldham battery