Ever since 1988, Prime Mover was already sold to BT Industries AB of Sweden and became BT Prime-Mover Inc. The new company then purchased the Raymond Corp in 1997 to create BT Raymond before Toyota Industries Corp. of Japan purchased it in 2000. The Prime Mover forklifts, electric forklifts, pallet jacks, low-lift trucks and stackers were manufactured in Muscatine, Iowa, and the forklift electric motors developed all through the years then helped define the success of Toyota Industries today.

Prime Mover no longer manufactures forklifts and their electric motors but many are still being used in warehouses and materials handling applications today. Some of today’s most famous forklifts from Prime Mover include the models RC-20, RC-25, RC-30 and RC-40. The Electric Reach Trucks, such as the RS 20, RS 30, RR-20, RDR-25 and RR-30, have been utilizing the powerful innovation created by the evolution of Prime Mover’s forklift motor tech. Now that Prime Mover is integrated with Toyota Industries Corporation, many powerful innovations are now being ushered.

One of these current Toyota technologies that have been rooted in the expertise of Prime Mover is the use of fuel cell vehicles (FCV). This system uses hydrogen as a fuel source and is a testament to the company’s dedication to clean energy. Ultimate energy source is already a synonym with FCV and is already being used in many warehouses and operations units across the world. Another innovation in the forklift electric motors would be the tapping of the energy of air compressors. The air compressor system sucks in air or oxygen from the atmosphere, compresses it and then supplies it to the fuel cell stack. This system is being employed to the forklifts’ rotor technologies, which then can result in high-efficiency and compressed air at all speeds, and will then transition the forklifts from idling to acceleration.

What sets the new forklift electric motors rooted in Prime Mover apart from the rest would be that they’re now able to use various sound-dampening structures in the air passages and that will reduce unpleasant sounds to the forklifts during their acceleration. This implies that the forklifts can now have reduced turbidity and will help create a sound that’s more in sync with what acceleration would sound like. There is an added compression structure in the rotors of these new components, too. They now can employ a 6-lobe helical root type rotor in the engine system, and can transition the forklifts during low-flow conditions, enabling the vehicles to perform across a variety of range settings.