Continue to the forums. As the shift from combustion engines to electric power gains momentum in industries like material handling and floor care, selecting the right battery technology for your equipment has never been more important. With various battery types available today, from traditional flooded lead-acid to advanced thin plate pure lead TPPL and lithium-ion options , understanding which is best suited to your specific operational needs can improve efficiency, reduce downtime, and lower costs.
In this guide, we walk through the critical factors to consider when choosing the optimal battery for your industrial vehicle fleet, whether you're running forklifts, electric carts, tow tractors, or burden carriers.
Equipment usage patterns vary widely, some equipment runs continuously across multiple shifts for multiple days, stopping briefly for worker breaks that are measured in minutes, while other equipment may be used intermittently with downtime that can be measured in days. The level of usage and its resultant demands for energy have a big impact on which battery technology is best.
This means the needed energy storage capacity for each application could vary dramatically β even if both locations are running the same piece s of equipment. While many operations focus solely on overall energy storage capacity, they often miss the other key factor, the recharging efficiency and speed of the battery and charger combination.
Most traditional flooded lead-acid batteries are designed around an extended period to charge and cool, which can take several hours and make them impractical for most opportunity charging applications. Prior to the development of advanced TPPL and lithium-ion battery technologies, operations maintained multiple batteries for each piece of equipment β changing them out as they became depleted during shifts.
