Your facility has about three dozen electric vehicles, including golf carts and electric lift trucks. Over the past year, maintenance logged nearly 100 tickets for picking up a dead vehicle and getting it operational again.
Typically, maintenance just puts a dead vehicle on charge, and the next shift puts it back in service. The plant manager expressed concern that maybe maintenance is just charging bad batteries. Testing four batteries selected at random found one with a dead cell; it was only a couple years old.
How do you solve this high incidence of dead vehicles?
First, test every battery. If you find another “young one” with a dead cell, you have a good clue that serious deep cycling is going on.
Watch how operators are using these vehicles, and listen to the motors. For example, you see an operator ascending a ramp with a heavy load. Does it appear to stall near the top? Do you hear the motor strain? Excess demand will drain the battery quickly; these vehicles are being used for service they aren’t designed for.
Next, look at the charging situation. Do you have a formal program or is the charging haphazard? Finally, determine if battery maintenance conforms to recommended practices.
