Well they have just launched a new High Efficiency VHFM modular charger. With efficiencies greater than 93% it is a market leader for efficiency.

Crown branch sales people are directed to sell this as they are the direct channel and don't have to use outside battery specialists (Enersys, Deka, GNB etc.) Part of their vertical integration strategy.

I agree the SCR technology is lower power effeciency and not new technolology. Can private label motive power batteries be far behind to complete the self sufficient loop?

the vforce isnt the only charger they can sell.. it is marketed as a basic charge for basic applications. they still sell the other makes out there....

I agree - especially for a MFG like Crown who boast about having a sophisticated line up of fork trucks,... poor choice of charger to match up with - I also think this will help out Crown Equipments competitors grab some Class I, III market share.

It appears to be the SAFT charger, which GNB batteries marketed under the SCR Flex name quite a long long time ago. SAFT is a Canadian company and the chargers were (and probably still are) made in Malaysia (I may or may not be correct about this).

I picked up some of their literature (under the V force name) and one of the claims is that the charger is more energy efficient because it uses a lower start rate! That's like taking a V-8 and only letting you use 4 cylinders for fuel economy (Hat tip to Chrysler.)

In terms of technology it represents an enormous step....backwards.

Crown is really sticking it to their salespeople with this one...there are more than a few sophisticated battery and charger companies that are going to eat them for lunch on this.

Any idea who that is? Under the V force brand they have a number of different sizes down to 12V. I agree that since the larger chargers are SCR they won't be very efficient.

It is manufactured for them by someone else + it's not a very energy efficient charger.