As the most important component of industrial vehicles, the process of applying lithium batteries to domestic industrial forklifts has been quietly opened and started to be widely implemented in manufacturing, transportation, warehousing, postal, wholesale and retail industries.

As a niche market with unique application scenarios, electric forklifts put forward differentiated requirements for lithium batteries, which are reflected in various aspects such as overall lifecycle economy, charge/discharge multiplicity, safety, the convenience of charging and maintenance.

The product solutions of maintenance-free, long life, high safety and reliability are more in line with the demand of forklifts for power energy systems, and lithium battery with longer life, better safety and lower overall life cycle cost is the best choice.

After combing through a number of CATL enterprises involved in forklift battery, they show certain differences in their technical routes.

In terms of the choice of technical route, CATL's battery solution for forklift trucks is to use the square lithium iron phosphate battery used in large quantities in commercial vehicles, which is mature, economical and has guaranteed supply, and at the same time, it adopts the mature group formation process of new energy vehicles and designs special modules according to the space and characteristics of forklift trucks.

In terms of specific performance, CATL forklift battery can achieve the following performance with its special module for forklifts:

● Aluminum alloy sheet metal frame, solid, light and good heat dissipation

●The frame adopts a mature riveting process instead of a screw connection to avoid loosening

●Battery series and parallel connection and electrical connection of sampling line adopt welding process instead of screws to avoid loosening

●The battery electrodes and electrical connections are supported and isolated by high-strength engineering plastic parts, which are touch-proof and have good long-term insulation.

The module fixing method is standardized to facilitate PACK assembly and long-term reliability

BYD: Self-sufficient LFP route

Unlike other enterprises, BYD is involved in both vehicle and battery in the field of forklifts, and it launched an electric forklift equipped with its own lithium iron phosphate battery to the market as early as 2013. It is also the earliest domestic electric forklift enterprise to enter the overseas market. At present, its customers have covered many countries and regions such as Europe and Japan.

On the official website of BYD forklift, its introduction for the battery developed for the forklift is made as follows:

●98% high efficiency: iron battery has high charging efficiency (charging efficiency exceeds 98%); it can perform 100% DOD deep discharge.

●10 years long life: under normal charging and discharging conditions, the capacity retention rate is more than 75% after 4000 cycles, the battery life is more than 10 years, and the electric forklift does not need to replace the battery during its life cycle;

●High safety: It can withstand harsh conditions; no fire and no explosion after accepting experiments such as collision, extrusion, pinprick, fire and high and low-temperature impact.

●Can be charged and discharged at a large 5C multiplier: the battery can be designed and combined according to different requirements of voltage, current, capacity and multiplier; it can be charged at a maximum 2C multiplier and discharged at a maximum 5C multiplier.

●Applicable to high and low-temperature work: high and low-temperature working environments between -40 degrees and 60 degrees.

Based on the above battery performance, it allows BYD electric forklift to have the functions of fast charging, charging on demand and free from maintenance, which can save up to 40% of operation costs and free battery warranty service for up to eight years.