Well, you know when something is coming of age and becoming popular when it moves into the Wal-Mart chain of retail stores. Fuel cells are doing just that. But, they are not for sale yet.
Wal-Mart has just finished successfully testing several fuel cell powered pallet trucks in one of their Ohio facilities. Cellex and Ballard supplied the fuel cell forklifts for testing and the vehicles exceeded targets for safety, uptime and fueling.
The Wal-Mart fuel cell pallet trucks were compared to similar vehicles running on lead acid batteries. The fuel cell forklifts outperformed the battery-operated ones in regard to longer run times, shorter fueling times and increased operator satisfaction.
Now that fuel cell forklifts are forking over Wal-Mart products, in a few short years they may be for sale at the world’s largest retailer in products such as bicycles and laptops. You may even be driving around in a small shopping scooter powered by fuel cell when you pick up these products. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the batteries?
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