The lithium forklift battery market does not need another company making promises. It needs one that keeps them.
That is why we built IBG Industrial Batteries. Not to introduce lithium to the material handling industry—that conversation happened years ago—but to raise the standard for what dealers and end-users should expect from a lithium battery partner: industrial-grade product, honest performance claims, real service support, and pricing that makes the switch practical for every fleet, including those still running lead-acid.
Today, I want to tell you who we are, what we offer, and why it matters to your business
Lithium Is No Longer the Future. It Is the Present.
The conversation around lithium forklift batteries has changed dramatically. A few years ago, dealers and fleet managers needed convincing that lithium was worth the investment. Today, the majority of new forklift sales are electric, and lithium-ion is rapidly displacing lead-acid as the battery of choice. The benefits are well-documented: lower total cost of ownership, zero daily maintenance, single-battery operation through multiple shifts, stable voltage from first pallet to last, and a cleaner, safer workplace.
But adoption has not been without growing pains. Some operations made the switch and had a great experience. Others invested in lithium and were disappointed—by batteries that underperformed, by suppliers who disappeared after the sale, by cheap components sold under premium claims. And a significant number of operations, particularly smaller fleets, have yet to make the transition at all, held back by upfront cost concerns or simple inertia.
IBG was built to serve all three of these groups.
Built on Experience. Designed for What Comes Next.
I have spent over a decade in the industrial lithium battery space. I have seen what works and what does not—in product design, in service delivery, in the way manufacturers partner with dealers, and in the way the industry communicates with end-users. I have watched companies launch lithium products without adequate service networks. I have seen batteries built with commodity components fail in demanding applications. I have seen dealers burned by suppliers who could not back up their warranties.
I have also seen lithium technology transform operations—reducing costs, improving safety, and enabling the kind of uptime that lead-acid simply cannot deliver. I know what a well-engineered lithium battery looks like in the field, not just on a spec sheet, because I have watched thousands of them perform in real-world applications over many years.
IBG brings together a team of professionals with deep technical, operational, and commercial expertise in the lithium forklift market. We combined global manufacturing scale with hard-earned U.S. market knowledge to create a product, pricing, and support model that did not exist before.
What IBG Delivers: A Smarter Way to Build Industrial Batteries
Most lithium battery suppliers approach the forklift market the same way: build a separate, unique battery for every truck model. The result is hundreds of distinct SKUs, long lead times, and a supply chain that struggles to keep the right battery in stock when a dealer needs it.
IBG took a fundamentally different approach. Our product line is built on a smart modular platform—a compact core battery system designed around a small number of standardized, high-performance modules. These core modules contain the cells, the battery management system, and the telemetry. What changes from one application to the next is the external housing—the steel enclosure that adapts the core to fit a specific truck’s battery compartment dimensions and counterweight requirements.
This is the key insight: the expensive, engineered part of the battery—the cells, the BMS, the electronics—is shared across applications. The part that varies—the housing and ballast—is simple, low-cost steel fabrication. One core platform. Many truck fits.
The result is a product line of over 800 models covering nearly all makes and models of Class I, II, and III lift trucks, plus sweepers, scrubbers, and specialty equipment—without requiring 800 fundamentally different batteries. Every unit uses LFP (lithium iron phosphate) chemistry, the safest and most proven lithium technology for industrial applications, with an advanced battery management system built for industrial duty cycles, and real-time telemetry with cloud connectivity.
We build batteries across the full voltage range the industry requires: 24V, 36V, 48V, 72V, 80V, and 96V, with capacity options from 150Ah to 1,500Ah. Whether the application is a pallet jack in a climate-controlled distribution center or an 80V counterbalanced sit-down handling 20,000-pound loads in a lumber yard, we have a battery engineered for that job. For cold storage and freezer operations, we offer configurations with integrated heating and insulation that maintain performance in environments where lead-acid batteries lose 30 to 50 percent of their capacity.
We also offer a complete line of chargers that are chemistry-agnostic, meaning they work with both lithium and lead-acid batteries. For dealers managing mixed fleets during the transition period, this eliminates the need for separate charging infrastructure.
What the Modular Platform Means for Dealers
For dealers, the modular approach solves one of the most persistent frustrations in the lithium battery business: lead times.
When every battery model is a unique build, a dealer has two bad options: carry large amounts of specialized inventory, or tell the customer to wait weeks for a factory order. Neither works well. Stocking dozens of distinct battery formats ties up capital in units that may sit for months. Quoting long lead times loses deals—especially when the customer’s lead-acid battery just failed and they need power now.
Because IBG’s core modules are standardized, we can maintain U.S.-based inventory of the components that matter and configure the right battery quickly. In many cases, we can ship the same week. The housing and counterweight are straightforward to produce and adapt—they do not require the same lead times as cell modules or BMS electronics. This means dealers can respond to customer needs faster, with less inventory risk.
And because the modular design extends to field service, when something does need attention, a technician can replace a module on-site in hours—not send the entire pack back to a factory for weeks.
What Happens When You Need Us
Product alone does not solve the trust deficit that exists in this market. Dealers and end-users have been burned by companies that sold batteries and then could not or would not support them. IBG was designed from the start with service infrastructure as a core function, not an afterthought.
Our warranty is five years or 3,500 cycles, whichever comes first, backed by two response tiers. Our expedited tier delivers remote technician response within 24 hours through real-time cellular data access—the technician can see exactly what the battery is doing before a truck rolls. Our standard tier provides response through our network of service partners within three to five business days. The warranty is meaningful because we have the infrastructure to honor it.
Every IBG battery transmits real-time performance data—energy throughput, charging events, cell health, temperature—accessible through cloud-based telemetry. This gives both dealers and end-users visibility into exactly how the battery is performing, and it gives our support team the ability to identify and resolve issues proactively, often before the customer is aware of them.
And pricing competes directly with lead-acid batteries, whether flooded, gel, or TPPL.
Lithium Rental at $350 Per Month: The Barrier-Free Entry Point
For many operations, particularly smaller fleets and companies making their first move away from lead-acid, the upfront cost of lithium has been the final obstacle. Even when the total cost of ownership math clearly favors lithium, the initial purchase price can stall the decision.
IBG eliminates that obstacle entirely. We offer lithium battery rental starting at $350 per month.
At that price point, a dealer can offer any customer—from a single-forklift operation to a multi-shift fleet—all the benefits of lithium at a monthly cost comparable to what they are already spending on lead-acid battery rental, maintenance, watering labor, and replacement cycles combined. No large capital outlay. No budget approval battle. No risk. The customer gets full-shift performance with zero daily maintenance, and if the battery does not deliver as promised, they are not locked into a depreciating asset.
The modular platform makes the rental model even stronger. Because the same core battery modules can be adapted to fit different truck formats through simple housing changes, a rental fleet does not require a separate, unique battery for every truck model on the floor. A dealer or rental company can serve a diverse range of customer equipment from a smaller pool of core units, improving utilization and reducing the cost of maintaining rental inventory. When a battery comes back from one customer’s Yale sit-down, the core can be re-housed and deployed into another customer’s Hyster reach truck. The expensive part of the battery—the cells and electronics—stays in service. Only the low-cost steel housing changes.
For dealers, this creates a rental program with real economics: recurring revenue, reduced inventory complexity, and a tool that turns the lithium conversation from “can you afford to switch?” to “can you afford not to?”
A Dealer-First Partnership Model
IBG is built around the dealer channel. We supply the product, the warranty, the remote diagnostics, and the technical expertise. Our dealer partners handle the customer relationship, delivery, installation, and local support that make the experience seamless for the end-user.
This is not a model where the manufacturer competes with its own dealers for the end-user’s business. It is a model where we equip dealers to win—with a product line that covers virtually any truck, pricing that is competitive from day one, a rental option that opens doors that were previously closed, and the kind of technical backup that lets a dealer confidently recommend lithium to any customer.
If you are a forklift dealer evaluating your lithium battery strategy, here is what a partnership with IBG looks like: access to 800+ battery models with fast lead times from U.S.-based inventory, a rental program with strong unit economics you can offer your customers immediately, a warranty with real teeth and real response times, and a manufacturer that treats your customer’s success as its own.
The Opportunity Is Now
The material handling industry has made its decision about lithium. The remaining question is not whether fleets will transition, but how quickly—and who will be the trusted partner that makes it happen.
For the operations still running lead-acid, the switch has never been more affordable or lower-risk. For the operations that tried lithium and were disappointed, there is now a supplier built specifically to deliver what was originally promised. And for the dealers looking to grow their business in a market that is moving decisively toward electrification, IBG offers a partnership designed to make you the first call your customers make
We are ready when you are.