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The world’s demand for electricity—and the
stored electrical energy in batteries—is escalating. Growth in
wireless communications, the Internet, critical electronic
operations that cannot be interrupted and the transportation needs
of a world on the move are creating enormous new demands for battery
power.
Exide Technologies is the global leader in providing stored
electrical-energy—or battery—power. As the world’s foremost supplier
of lead-acid batteries for transportation, network power and motive
power applications, with an increasing presence in emerging battery
technologies, Exide Technologies offers the most comprehensive
portfolio of superior technologies, products and people.
With operations in 89 countries, Exide Technologies has captured one
of the leading positions in every market it serves—including the
original equipment market and the aftermarket.
Motive Power Business: Keeping Electric
Vehicles and Devices in Motion
 Today’s
consumer society, from bricks and mortar to e-commerce, would stop
cold without lead-acid batteries. These batteries power the lift
trucks and other commercial electric vehicles used across the
materials handling industry, to supply goods and products ordered
through traditional or on-line channels. These quiet, powerful,
zero-emission vehicles, which move raw materials and finished goods
through all parts of the supply chain, including retail stores,
logistics hubs, warehouses, cross-docking points and distribution
centers, are an integral part of modern materials handling.
Providing the batteries that power these and a host of other
commercial electric vehicles is the job of the motive power teams
within Exide Technologies Industrial Energy Global Business Unit (GBU).
The Exide Technologies Industrial Energy GBU’s global headquarters
is in Manchester, England. Its North American operations are based
in Aurora, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. The Industrial Energy GBU
provides a complete portfolio of deep-cycle batteries used as the
sole power source for a range of commercial electric vehicles and
devices for some of the world’s best-known companies such as
Wal-Mart, Tesco, Ford, Hyster, Toyota, Hako and Junghenrich. It also
offers a spectrum of battery handling charging and maintenance
equipment and services, including chargers, ancillary products and
systems, and in-house battery service, service agents, battery
rental, service contracts and on- and off-site battery specification
and installation.
Unlike the more familiar starting batteries,
which provide a short burst of high power to start a vehicle’s
engine, deep cycle batteries provide a long lasting, steady supply
of electrical energy that powers a vehicle during its service life.
These batteries are used in applications in which safety, high
quality and reliability are paramount.
In addition to lift trucks, Exide’s motive power
batteries are used for the complete range of materials handling
vehicles such as various types of pallet trucks and stackers, order
pickers, scissors lifts and reach trucks. Beyond materials handling,
the batteries also power mobile utility work platforms, mining
locomotives, airport ground-support equipment, passenger shuttles,
delivery vehicles, boats, wheelchairs and floor-scrubbing equipment
used in airports, hospitals shopping centers and other large public
spaces. Exide’s products support the movement of the majority of
planes, people and baggage throughout Europe’s airports.
Exide’s motive power product portfolio includes
such consumer brand leaders as Champion®,
Chloride Motive Power, Deta, Fulmen, Sonnenschein and Tudor. Its
customers include original equipment manufacturers, aftermarket
suppliers, automotive manufacturers, utility contractors and
retailers. Exide Technologies is a supplier to three of the four
largest retailers in North America alone.
“When most people think of the term ‘electric
vehicle,’ they think of electric passenger cars, which represent
only a sliver of the electric vehicle market,” said Neil Bright,
President of the Exide Technologies Industrial Energy GBU. “In fact,
the market for motive power applications is $1.2 billion worldwide,
and Exide Technologies holds the lion’s share of the market.” As the
leader of the Motive Power Group, Bright is responsible for the
company’s worldwide motive power battery operations, including
manufacturing, sales, service and recycling.
The Technology Behind the World’s Leading
Motive Power Batteries
Exide manufactures a range of products including
welded and bolted cells and monoblocs. The monoblocs are available
as conventional flooded technology with flat or tubular positive
plates, or maintenance free with gelled electrolyte or AGM. The
company has extensive technology and application global expertise
with its Sonnenschein gel and Champion® AGM maintenance-free ranges.
These batteries will not spill or leak, they never require the
addition of water, never need specific gravity checked or acid
adjustment.
Exide’s service extends from the company’s factory floors to its
customers’ doors. It offers a full line of high-tech, intelligent
remote battery monitoring systems as well as chargers that provide
fast, slow and high frequency charging, depending on the application
and customer requirements. Exide even offers a team of 450 mobile
service engineers in Europe who travel to customer locations to
provide technical and service support. Exide’s service extends from
manufacturing, monitoring, maintenance and recycling, taking
responsibility for its products so customers can take responsibility
for theirs.
“Our combination of advanced technology and service capabilities
allows us to offer a complete range of stored electrical energy
options for the motive power market,” noted Bright.
Exide Technologies Today and Tomorrow
The lead-acid battery is evolving high technology
at its best. Developed in 1859, its first use was to power electric
lights in railroad cars while they stopped in stations. Exide Technologies
researchers and engineers have advanced the technology to make a battery
that is smaller, more powerful, safer, longer-lived, and less expensive
than before.
To keep the company at the forefront of the most
significant developments in the industry, Exide recently established
its own global network of battery testing and design improvement centers
in North America, France, Spain, Australia and Great Britain. The company’s
engineers continually work to explore new and better ways to advance
lead-acid battery technology.
“We have the potential to introduce innovative and
exciting batteries and systems that could literally change the way the
world uses and stores electrical energy,” said GBU President Bright.
The Global Advantage
Exide Technologies’ global footprint is enhanced
by the technological developments of all its divisions. Also within
the Industrial Energy GBU, the company’s network power applications
teams supply batteries for network communications for a broad
customer base that includes Nokia and Nippon Telegraph and
Telephone. The Exide Transportation Business Group, headquartered in
suburban Atlanta, Ga., provides starting and deep-cycle batteries
for vehicles ranging from garden tractors to cars, pickup trucks,
motorcycles, boats, jet skis, golf cars, farm equipment, RVs, motor
homes, buses, locomotives, tractor trailers and military equipment
such as tanks and personnel carriers. Exide also supplies batteries
for submarine and surface vessels for the majority of the world’s
navies, and also is developing sealed and flooded high voltage
battery systems for transportation and industrial applications.
“Because Exide Technologies melds two significant bases of
experience and technological innovation from its transportation and
industrial business sectors, we lead the industry, keeping an
increasingly power hungry 21st century world in touch, backed up and
on the move,” said Bright.
Contact:
Jeannine Addams
Kristin Wohlleben
J. Addams & Partners, Inc.
404/231-1132
communications@exide.com
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