According to Sabine Neuß, COO of Linde Material Handling, the company will invest a substantial amount of money in the Aschaffenburg production site in the coming years.

Linde Material Handling says it will invest a "substantial amount of money" in its Aschaffenburg production site in the future, as it celebrates the milestone 750,000th truck produced by the plant.

The electric counterbalance truck, with a load capacity of 5 T, now belongs to the BMW Group, a long-standing customer of Linde MH and its distribution partner, Gruma Fördertechnik GmbH. The group will use the Linde E50 for loading and unloading lorries in its components plant in Wackersdorf, Upper Palatinate.

Among those present at the recent key handover ceremony was Theodor Maurer, CEO of Linde MH; Roland Hartwig, vice president operations Aschaffenburg; Sabine Neuß, chief operating officer of Linde MH; Christophe Lautray, chief sales officer of Linde MH; as well as Robert Limmer and Thomas Kufner from the BMW Group.

In 1959, the first model built in Aschaffenburg and brought to market was the Hubtrac - the forerunner of all Linde trucks. Only a few hundred of these were produced - about one-fifth of them sold outside of Germany. But demand increased, according to Linde MH, and the model became extremely popular.

At the start of the 1970s, the first electric counterbalance trucks were added to the production program of the company. In 1982, the Linde range of diesel trucks already included four different series, with models featuring a load capacity of between 1.2 and 7 T. For electric forklifts, the load capacity ranged from 1.2 to 3 T.

According to Linde MH, the diesel truck series 351 launched in 1985 made a "decisive contribution to the overall success of the company" and was positioned in the "premium class" of between 2 and 3.5 T. Up to 2001, 100,000 units of these models were assembled in Aschaffenburg. This achievement saw Linde receive the accolade of manufacturing "Europe's most-produced truck" and secured the company's position as market leader in the region in terms of trucks driven by an internal combustion engine.

Despite Aschaffenburg manufacturing far more internal combustion engine forklifts than those with an electric drive for some time, the situation has changed in the past decade and now the proportion of each has more or less balanced out.

"In terms of production, we believe that Linde has now become the market leader in Europe for this segment, too," says Neuß, "By making investments worth about EUR60 million (USD77.6 million) by 2021, we will expand our production capacity at the Aschaffenburg site in the medium-term and simultaneously optimise our processes even further."