As the world's largest forklift producer and consumer market, China is striding forward with a leap-forward development attitude in the face of the unpredictable international market. At present, the mainstream internal combustion forklifts in the domestic market are cumbersome, noisy in operation, and extremely exhausting, and their limitations are gradually becoming prominent. With the continuous changes in the forklift industry technology, oil-to-electric forklifts came into being. The emergence of electric forklifts, on the one hand, can reduce the cost pressure for companies to purchase new vehicles, and on the other hand, it can also solve the environmental protection problems of internal combustion vehicles.

In today's energy shortage and serious environmental pollution, it is a general trend to continuously increase the proportion of electric forklifts in compliance with the national policy call for energy conservation and emission reduction. However, the shortage of high-end forklift products and the overcapacity of low-end products have caused domestic product types to "homogenize". If domestic forklift companies want to change the status quo, it is not easy to "break out of the siege" among many forklift brands.

As the first domestic company to win the IFOY international forklift, BYD was committed to the technological innovation of oil-to-electric forklifts as early as 2009. After ten years of transformation, it has now reached agreements with many well-known companies such as Huawei, SF Express, and Nine Dragons Paper. Cooperation, and obtained industry recognition in many fields such as food and beverage, automobile and parts, home appliance production, etc. The products are spread across six continents around the world. As of 2020, the cumulative number of customers is 4000+, the number of lithium-ion forklifts is 50,000+, the maximum mileage of bicycles is 60,000+, and the sales of lithium-ion forklifts are close to 20,000 units. Under severe market pressure, why BYD has achieved a sudden rise is the goal that peers in the oil-to-electric forklift industry are constantly exploring.

Green drive another way

In 2009, China's domestic internal combustion forklifts are gaining momentum. Driven by the market environment, most of the forklift companies mass-produce and sell internal combustion forklifts, making the production and sales of internal combustion forklifts increase year by year. At this time, the electric forklift did not receive high attention due to its technical shortcomings. Although its sales volume increased year by year, its market share was still low. However, due to the lack of lithium battery R&D technology, the high manufacturing price and the inability to guarantee the safety factor, the lithium battery forklift has not been able to be used in practice.

In the market environment where electric forklifts did not seem to have any development prospects at that time, BYD adhered to a green and sustainable development strategy, strengthened its confidence in the green and environmentally friendly material handling equipment market, and relied on a forward-looking vision and extraordinary courage and excellence. Wisdom, resolutely embarked on the road of research and development of lithium battery forklifts. After more than ten years of hard work, it finally ushered in the highlight of the development of the forklift industry.

Technology empowers, continuous innovation

Compared with traditional internal combustion forklifts, poor endurance has always been the "crisis" of the research and development of "oil-to-electric" forklifts. In this regard, BYD forklifts focus on the research and development of the battery field, and continuously draw on and learn from the group’s advanced battery, motor, electronic control, charging equipment, vehicle manufacturing process and other technical experience, accumulate technology, accumulate and develop, finally, zero Electric forklifts with the advantages of emission, zero pollution, low energy consumption, and long life lithium battery emerged as the times require, and quickly stand out in the highly competitive market and stabilize the industry trend.

BYD Forklifts has always adhered to the development concept of "technology is king, innovation is the foundation", and provides customers with comprehensive and efficient new energy material handling solutions, which has allowed BYD forklifts to record high market sales. According to statistics, in 2018, BYD's annual sales of forklifts exceeded 12,000 units, and sales exceeded 1.5 billion yuan. After 11 years of testing, counterbalanced forklifts ranked at the forefront of the Industrial Vehicle Association's lithium battery forklift sales statistics.

Ingenuity, excellence

BYD forklifts always adhere to the craftsman spirit of excellence, focus on the product quality itself, and strictly control it at all levels. The quality concept runs through every link from research and development, design, production to sales, and is implemented in the heart of every employee. Coupled with the determination to carry out electrification to the end, BYD forklifts have achieved a great leap from nothing to strong. Since its establishment in 2009, BYD Forklift has developed various new energy products such as counterbalanced forklifts, reach forklifts, pallet trucks, stackers, tractors, AGVs, and aerial work platforms.

In the new year, BYD forklifts, with strong R&D capabilities and innovation capabilities, grandly launch new products: BYD E series counterbalanced forklifts and BYD S series counterbalanced forklifts, which will be fully deployed in 2021. These two new products break the previous limitations, and the performance and service are upgraded again. First, the battery capacity of the two new products has been re-expanded, and the battery warranty has been increased to 5 years/12,000 hours. In addition, BYD S series counterbalanced forklift trucks are equipped with electro-hydraulic proportional valves as standard, which makes the control more convenient and excellent. In terms of vehicle quality assurance, it has created a high level of industry, and the vehicle quality assurance has been changed to three years.

The emergence of BYD forklifts has changed the inherent production and operation mode of the traditional forklift industry and brought disruptive technological innovations to the industry. BYD has also become a leader in the lithium battery industry, setting off a storm of green revolution in new energy for the entire forklift industry. I believe that in the future, under the leadership of high-quality forklift companies such as BYD, "oil-to-electric" forklifts will have a huge market prospect and a broader development space, and the forklift market will usher in a more intelligent, personalized and diversified future .Editor/Xing Wentao