Batteries, Charging and Exchange Systems for Materials Handling Equipment

Report Scope

The scope of this report is specifically focused on industrial material handling equipment batteries, charging systems and battery exchange systems in North America. The market is broken down by major battery types, charging technologies, exchange systems and owner operations and applications. The market is discussed with estimated values derived from available data.

This report focuses only on off-road, battery-provided motive power industrial applications for material handling equipment. On-road vehicles—such as transport vehicles or trucks, internal combustion and fuel cell powered vehicles and their refueling systems—are not investigated. In a like manner, large specialty applications such as ship cargo handling equipment are not investigated.

Automatic guided vehicles (AGVs) are a special class of robotic material handling equipment. AGVs are the specific focus of BCC Research report IAS099A, “Automated Material Handling Equipment and Systems: The North American Market.” AGVs perform many of the same functions as other material handling equipment and, for this report, will be grouped with the similar class rather than being discussed separately.

The report also includes a discussion of the major vendors across each application and specialty market. Further, it explains the major drivers and dynamics of the market and current trends within the industry.

The report concludes with a special focus on the vendor landscape and includes detailed profiles of the major vendors in the industrial battery, battery charging and battery exchange equipment markets.

This report details actual figures for 2018 and compound annual growth rate (CAGR) projections for 2019 to 2024. A discussion of emerging technologies describes the areas in which research is being performed and incentivized and their anticipated effects in future markets.

Note that values are expressed in millions of dollars, and sales are expressed in 1,000 units. In both cases, totals are rounded to the nearest integer (i.e., less than $500,000 is expressed as $0). Values are based on the equivalent of retail, which is the price publicly advertised. In some cases, sales may be less than 500 units but because of high cost, value may exceed $1 million. In these cases, the quantities are expressed as “<1”.

Analyst Credentials

This report’s project analyst, Stephen Schey, had more than 10 years of experience in the electric forktruck battery charging industry, starting in 1996. He was involved in the design and business case development of the first system for fast-charging industrial forktruck batteries (Minit-Charger). He participated in the development of the technology products into a strategic offering for customers and developed the value proposition for replacing the traditional battery exchange systems for multi-shift operations. He sold the first units in a manufacturing environment in 1998. He managed the southern region of the United States, promoting and selling the Minit‐Charger product to warehouses, distribution centers and airports through managed national accounts and local dealers.