In today’s fast-paced industrial landscape, maximising productivity and minimising operational costs are crucial. As more businesses strive for sustainability, the choice of forklift battery can make a significant difference in efficiency. Lithium-ion battery forklifts offer a game-changing solution, providing longer run times, lower maintenance, and enhanced safety compared to traditional lead-acid battery forklifts. At Heli Oceania, we’re dedicated to helping you harness these benefits, ensuring your material-handling operations are not just efficient but also future-ready. Discover why switching to lithium-ion could be a smart move for your business.
Low maintenance
Battery maintenance is one of the key reasons many businesses prefer lithium-ion battery solutions over lead-acid batteries.
The maintenance of lead-acid batteries can be quite time-consuming, from regular fluid level checks to frequent temperature regulations (cool-down periods) and weekly battery equalisations (ensuring the acid doesn’t sink to the bottom). Poor/infrequent battery maintenance can negatively impact the overall battery charge and lifetime, meaning more downtime is REQUIRED for maintenance, impacting productivity and revenue negatively.
Whereas lithium-ion batteries require little to no maintenance. They can self-equalize, handle reasonable temperature changes and have no fluid. Overall, saving your business time and money in the long run.
Longer run time
Lithium-ion has a higher energy density that is 3-6 times stronger than lead-acid. Which means longer run times increasing your team’s productivity. Less time spent charging forklift batteries and more time tackling the tasks at hand!
It’s also rare to find a lithium-ion battery forklift at 0% since they charge faster and allow for “opportunity charging” (charging between break times) as no cooldown period is required. Whereas lead-acid battery forklifts can only be used up to 20% battery before they require charging, you may need to pause your busy workflow or ensure you have extra batteries ready to go.
Environmentally safer
Both battery options (lithium-ion and lead-acid) are environmentally greener than combustion engines, producing zero emissions or gases during use.
Lead-acid batteries are usually 80% recyclable. However, it is important to ensure you properly dispose of your lead-acid battery as fluids inside the battery are toxic and can pose a health and safety risk to any products and people working within your warehouse.
Cost
The initial cost of lithium-ion battery forklifts are slightly higher than its lead-acid battery counterpart. However, it is worth noting – you’ll quickly save money on maintenance and time on charging down times with a lithium-ion battery solution, increasing your productivity and driving energy efficiency (cheaper energy bills), keeping operational costs down in the long run.
Safety
Safety is paramount and should be forefront when choosing the right material-handling product for your business. Both lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries can be safe if handled correctly. However, if mishandled, the corrosive acids and heavy metals in lead-acid batteries can pose serious environmental and health risks.
Heli takes pride in their pledge to safety. When creating lithium-ion battery material-handling products, they went above and beyond to minimise as many battery-related risks as possible. Testing them again and again, to ensure operator safety.
✅ Drop Test: Heli’s lithium-ion batteries passed the drop test, posing no hazard to the vehicle and the operator (no fires, explosions or electrolyte leakages).
✅ Fire Test: No internal fires or explosions occurred in the battery system when exposed to external fires, helping to prevent any secondary damage to the operator.
✅ Crush Test: When the vehicle was exposed to an extreme condition (such as a crash), no fires or explosions occurred in the battery pack (except for slight deformation).
✅ THV Test: Heli’s lithium-ion battery underwent 21 hours of continuous vibration (to simulate day-to-day driving conditions) with no fire, explosions, electrolyte leakages or cracking on the battery shell. Further testing showed normal function of insulation, high-voltage resistance, BMS communication and data collection.
✅ IPX8 Water Immersion Test: When immersed in a meter depth of water, all seals and insulation performed normally (airtight) with zero water ingress. Tests showed the vehicle can easily adapt to various immersion scenarios and run normally without any electrolyte leakages or short-circuiting of the battery systems.
✅ IPX9 High-Pressure Water Spray Test: When exposed to high-temperature and/or high-pressure washing scenarios there were no electrolyte leakages or short-circuits of battery systems. No water ingress with all seals and insulation performing normally (airtight).
With over 400+ rigorous tests, Heli’s lithium-ion battery forklift solutions ensure a worry-free operation.
Here at Heli Oceania, we offer a wide range of lithium-ion battery forklift solutions. We understand that making the switch can be quite daunting but it might be the right move for your business, especially if you’re due for an upgrade soon. Our friendly team at Heli Oceania can help guide you to a solution that best fits your business needs, get in touch today!