Forklift Trucks

Forklift Trucks Buying Guide

Start with power: electric, LPG, or diesel. The engine dictates where a truck can legally and comfortably work, so decide it first. Battery-electric trucks make no exhaust, which suits enclosed warehouses, food and cold storage, and any indoor shift where air quality matters. EKKO's sit down electric forklifts cover that lane, a compact 3-wheel model rated 3,500 lb for tight indoor bays and a lithium 4-wheel truck to 7,000 lb for heavier indoor pallet work. When the same truck has to move between the dock and the yard, LPG forklifts are the flexible middle: propane runs indoors with adequate ventilation and outdoors without a second thought, and a swappable tank refuels in minutes instead of waiting on a charge. The EKKO LPG range is the deepest bench in this hub, running from 4,000 lb up to a 10,000 lb truck. When the work lives outside on rough ground, diesel forklifts bring the torque, and EKKO's 8,500 lb diesel is built for the lumber yard, the block plant, and the loading apron. Diesel exhaust is the catch: carbon monoxide and particulate build fast in enclosed spaces, so keep diesel outdoors or in wide, open bays.

Match the truck to the aisle and the lift height. A counterbalance forklift carries its load out front and balances it with weight in the back of the truck, which is why it needs room to turn and why its lift tops out around 240 inches. Every LPG, diesel, and sit-down electric truck here is a counterbalance design, and so is EKKO's stand up rider forklift, a 4,000 lb stand-on truck whose sideways stance and quick on-off ergonomics fit dock work and short shuttle runs where the operator steps on and off all day. When the aisles get tight and the racking gets tall, that rear counterweight becomes the problem. The answer is a narrow-aisle truck that reaches the load instead of carrying it out front, which shifts the choice to the pair below.

Reach trucks and order pickers: the narrow-aisle pair. EKKO's reach trucks use a pantograph, a scissoring mechanism that pushes the forks forward into the rack and pulls the load back over the wheelbase for travel. Baselegs replace the counterweight, so the truck works aisles a counterbalance cannot and lifts higher, to about 18 ft on the top lithium model. These are pedestrian-controlled walkie reach trucks rated 3,300 lb, with li-ion versions for multi-shift duty. Order pickers solve the opposite job: instead of moving a whole pallet, they raise the operator up to the shelf to pick individual cases by hand. EKKO splits them into a low-level 220 lb picker that lifts the operator to roughly 165 inches and heavier 1,500 lb platforms that carry a pallet up alongside the picker. Rule of thumb: reach truck for putaway and pallet moves at height, order picker for hand-picking cases from that same racking.

Every one of these is a powered industrial truck. Every truck on this page is a powered industrial truck under OSHA 29 CFR 1910.178, so 1910.178(l) requires each operator to be trained and evaluated before running one, with a re-evaluation at least every three years. The certification is specific to the truck type and to your workplace, so a reach truck operator is not automatically cleared to run a sit-down LPG truck. Order pickers add a second rule: because the operator rides the platform up, OSHA requires fall protection whenever the platform is elevated, which means a full-body harness and lanyard clipped to the machine's anchor point. Budget the training and the harness alongside the truck, and keep the records, because operator certification is one of the first things an inspection asks to see.

Capacity, tires, and floors. Rate the truck to your heaviest real load with margin, and remember that rated capacity drops as the mast goes higher and as the load center moves away from the backrest, so read the truck's capacity plate rather than the headline number. Tires decide where it runs: cushion tires sit low and turn tight on smooth sealed concrete, while pneumatic tires roll over gravel, broken asphalt, and yard surfaces, which is why EKKO offers both cushion and pneumatic builds across the LPG range. Check aisle width and turning radius against your layout before buying any counterbalance truck, measure door and ceiling heights against both the lowered and the raised mast, and confirm the floor can carry the wheel loads. Round up when you land between sizes, because an underbought forklift bottlenecks the whole operation and gets traded within a year.