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Category: Electric forklift solution,
Battery powered forklifts are fast becoming a staple for facilities across South Africa for a few key reasons. Compared to their fuel powered counterparts, they offer numerous benefits without sacrificing on their core functionality.
These benefits vary greatly, but all contribute to a solution that generally lowers the cost of ownership, ensures consistent efficiency, and ensures more sustainability in the long-term.
So, if you have been on the fence about whether to buy a battery or fuel powered forklift truck, here are a few good reasons to strongly consider the latter:
Wherever heavy machinery is being used, there is a concern about pollution, even where the considerably lightweight forklift truck is concerned.
Fuel powered forklift trucks contribute to two major types of pollution in facilities, namely air and noise pollution.
Diesel or petrol engines make a lot of noise during operations, and while the sound of forklift trucks do tend to blend into the background of facilities, they contribute to a more stressful, unhealthy, and unsafe environment purely due to the noise they make.
Electric forklifts are much more silent in their operations, which helps to eliminate noise pollution from facilities.
The next type of pollution, air pollution, is of particular concern where forklift trucks are being used indoors, since they expel harmful fumes into the air, which is unsafe for anyone in the vicinity. Even when used outside, they contribute to overall harm for the environment.
Electric forklifts, which produce no such pollution, therefore offer a much safer and more environmentally friendly alternative.
Unlike their fuel-powered counterparts, the electric motors in battery powered forklifts have far fewer moving parts, which means that they will take significantly less damage from wear and tear over time.
At the end of the day, this contributes to a reduction in the time and money spent on maintenance and repairs for electric forklifts, which accounts for compounded savings over time.
Additionally, electric forklifts require no oils or lubricants, which accounts for even more savings.
Lastly, there is less of a chance of failures and resulting downtime, which means that they offer higher levels of reliability, even with less of a need for maintenance.
The operational and ownership costs of fuel-powered forklifts can be substantial, most of which are not present in battery powered forklifts, making them a far more attractive alternative for most businesses.
Just where fuel consumption is concerned, the cost of operating a fuel-powered forklift can increase by no less than 40%. This coupled with the savings on maintenance, ensures that battery powered forklifts offer a much more affordable and sustainable solution.
For many businesses that use fuel forklifts, one of the biggest challenges to space and organisation is how to correctly store the fuel needed for forklifts, which is a concern that obviously doesn’t apply to the use of electric ones, since they don’t require fuel of any type.
Fuel storage will increase the operational and ownership costs of forklifts substantially, adds another need for management and admin, and even presents numerous hazards such as risks of fires and explosions.
For those businesses opting for battery powered forklifts, these are not things they need to worry about.
The last major benefit to using electric forklifts is that they enhance the overall safety levels within a facility substantially. We have touched on a few of these already, like not needing to store fuel, having equipment that always operates correctly, and of course, not having harmful fumes and odours in working environments.
An often-overlooked aspect of safety here is that there won’t be any oil leaks or hazards present in your facility (at least not from the forklifts), which contributes to an overall safer operational environment.
If you would like to know more about our offers on electric forklifts for sale, be sure to get in contact with a representative from the Orizen Group today