Chief Marketing Officer Martin Boyd Shares Industry Insights on DC Velocity’s innovation IN MOTION Podcast
Big Joe CMO Marty Boyd sat down with DC Velocity's David Maloney for an episode of Innovation in Motion, covering where the forklift market is headed and why Big Joe is positioning itself at the front of that shift. Listen to the full conversation below, or read on for some of the highlights.
A 75-year milestone, and a shift in identity
Big Joe is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, founded in 1951 in Wisconsin. The company has long been known in warehouse and distribution circles for its Class 2 and Class 3 lineup. But as Boyd explained, that's no longer the full picture. Big Joe has been building out its Class 1 sit-down counterbalance line, and it's a bigger part of the business than most of the market realizes.
Why electrification is accelerating now
Boyd walked through the numbers: in 1984, the Class 1 versus Class 4/5 sit-down counterbalance market was split roughly 80/20 in favor of internal combustion. Over the following 40 years, that shifted to about 55/45, IC still ahead but electric closing the gap. The interesting part is the pace. Most of that movement, by Boyd's account, happened in just the last ten years, tracking closely with the rise of lithium battery technology.
The reason lithium changed the equation comes down to the pain points that used to make electric a hard sell: lead-acid maintenance, charging discipline, multiple batteries per truck, and the workplace safety issues that come with battery rooms. Lithium removes most of that. Big Joe's approach goes a step further by integrating the battery into the truck design itself, rather than treating it as a swap-in replacement for a lead-acid box.
Owning the battery, not outsourcing it
One point Boyd emphasized: Big Joe designs, manufactures, and supports its own lithium batteries rather than sourcing them from a third party. He noted that parent company EP Equipment has been building integrated lithium Class 1 trucks since 2011, with roughly 150,000 units out in the field globally, which he framed as evidence that Big Joe's Class 1 expertise runs deeper than the market assumes.
The real obstacle isn't the technology
Asked what's slowing the IC-to-electric transition, Boyd didn't point to the equipment. He pointed to the sales process. Selling a customer another propane truck is a fast, familiar transaction. Selling an electric conversion means evaluating a facility's electrical infrastructure, right-sizing the battery and charger, planning charger placement, and training operators on charging discipline. That's a longer, more consultative sale, and Boyd said dealers who are used to a transactional model can be tempted to fall back on what's easy.
This is where Big Joe Pulse comes in. Standard on Class 1 trucks, the telematics platform gives dealers and customers the data to plan and size an electrification transition with actual numbers instead of guesswork, including how much energy a fleet will draw once it's converted.
The payback math
On the payback for switching from internal combustion to lithium forklifts:
"The ROI isn't really so much years anymore. We can almost bring it down to months."
-Martin Boyd, CMO
On cost, Boyd cited fuel savings in the 80-90% range moving from propane to integrated lithium, with additional savings from reduced maintenance. He noted that as lithium costs have come down, the ROI timeline for a conversion has moved from a multi-year payback to, in some cases, a matter of months.
What's next: autonomous solutions
Electrification is the current focus, but Boyd was clear it's not the end goal. He connected the dots directly to Big Joe Autonomous Solutions, launched at Automate in Chicago this year: the AP44 autonomous pallet truck, along with an autonomous stacker, tugger, and three-wheel counterbalanced unit. All four are available now.
Boyd's framing for the division: "approachable automation that simply works." No major infrastructure changes, no long IT lift, demos running same-day in many facilities. As he put it, once a facility electrifies, the natural next step is moving the operator from repetitive point-A-to-point-B tasks into higher-value work.
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