News

Enter the E-zone!
2006-07-31

At an international press preview held in Elancourt near Paris, Linde Material Handling gave a selected audience the first look at its most important truck release scheduled for this year: the new E 12 to E 20 range of 1200 to 2000 kg capacity electric counterbalance trucks. This innovation is a move by Linde to emulate with the leading role it already plays in engine powered trucks with regard to uptime, operator comfort and productivity. Market launch throughout Europe is scheduled to proceed progressively over the coming months and will be vigorously supported by a number of press and customer events. Dealers in Germany will be accepting the first orders for the new electric trucks in September.

Scheduled for introduction into the German market in September, the new Linde E12 to E20 range of 1200 to 2000 kg capacity electric counterbalance trucks was recently unveiled to the trade press.

As with the successful engine powered forklifts of the 39X series and the R14X to R17X reach trucks introduced at CeMAT last year, Linde has modified the concept for its new electric counterbalance models. About eighty per cent of the truck, in terms of total value, has been re-engineered and redesigned. "That has nothing to do with face-lifting" asserts Harald Wozniak, head of in-ternational marketing at Linde Material Handling. Developed over a period of three and a half years, the truck is another one-hundred-percent in-house development. Detailed market studies and internal projects preceding the concept and development phase led to the clearly defined objective of translating energy into maximum productivity, achieved by Linde engineers through nu-merous technical improvements. All that Wozniak was willing to disclose at the moment was the central part played by a novel "energy management system". First, the truck uses less energy; second, the energy input is utilized to the full; and third, battery charging and changing is quick.

Whether equipped with conventional Ex protection or a gas alarm system, on Linde explosion-protected trucks all components are ATEX-certified and subjected to gas penetration test. Moreover the trucks are type-tested, meaning that testing for the respective protection category is not only made on the separate parts but repeated on the truck as a whole when fully assembled.

The slogan under which the innovative truck is being presented to the market is "Enter the E-zone!", chosen to emphasize that it constitutes a new league in this segment of the market. At the same time, Linde is reaffirming its claim to technological leadership. For all that, cutting-edge technology is by no means seen as an end in itself. The focus is rather on added value for users, founded on safety, reliability, performance, operator comfort and productivity.

Ranking among the European market leaders in electric counterbalance trucks, Linde succeeded in building additional market share during the past year. The company now anticipates a further significant boost is business from the new E 12 to E 20 three-wheel and four-wheel models.

The illustration of the new Linde E12 to E20 range of 1200 to 2000 kg capacity electric counterbalance trucks gives an initial impression of the design concept.