Hydrogen fuel cell-powered pallet trucks have been beta trialed by Cellex Power Products at two Wal-Mart distribution centers based at Ohio. These pallet trucks have successfully met, also exceeding uptime, fueling and targets for both environment and safety.
Continuously operating, these 12 rider pallet trucks have logged more than 18,500 hours of active work during a four-month long field trial! It has been fueled by more than 2,100 indoor occurrences by pallet truck operators.
Johnnie Dobbs, Wal-Mart’s executive vice president of Logistics and Supply Chain said,
This beta trial success is a significant milestone for Cellex from Wal-Mart’s perspective. We really put these Cellex-powered vehicles to the test in our pallet truck applications and they did the job. Our pallet truck operators were most pleased with their performance and the ease of use. We now understand that operationally this new technology can be utilized in this application.
Compared to lead acid batteries, the Cellex fuel cells have proved with improved productivity, with longer run times and shorter fueling times. Furthermore, the pallet truck operators are capable of fueling their trucks in even less than two minutes!
The 200-square-feet indoor fuel dispensing area (compared to 4,000 square feet for a lead acid battery room) helped the operators fuel their trucks easily, quickly and safely.
