Retail giant Tesco is trialing the new Jungheinrich lithium-ion powered forklift as part of its policy to reduce CO2 emissions across its materials handling fleet.

Jungheinrich believes the new lithium-ion truck is one of the most significant developments in forklift truck technology for many years.

The first lithium-ion powered forklift to be commercially available in the world – the Jungheinrich EJE112i powered pallet truck – has been purchased and is being trialled by Tesco.

The new truck, which was launched at the recent CeMAT exhibition in Germany, will shortly be in operation at one of the retailer’s main distribution centres.

Richard Ash, Tesco’s Corporate Purchasing Manager, commented: “As a company, Tesco is taking up the environmental challenge and is striving to reduce carbon emissions across the business. With its low energy consumption, we believe that the new Jungheinrich EJE 112i truck could play a significant role in helping to reduce CO2 emissions across our materials handling fleet.”

Tesco currently operates a large fleet of Jungheinrich powered pallet trucks in the UK and an extensive fleet of Jungheinrich materials handling equipment throughout its global distribution operation.

Jungheinrich ranks among the world’s leading companies in the material handling equipment, warehousing and material flow engineering sectors. The company is a service provider with manufacturing operations as well as an intralogistics solution provider, which offers its customers a comprehensive range of forklift trucks, shelving systems, services and consulting. Jungheinrich shares are traded on all German stock exchanges.