Forklift Manufacturing: From Tructractor to ABB Robots

Forklift manufacturing is a heavy welding and painting business. A lift truck is built from thick steel masts, forks, carriages and frames that must be joined accurately and then coated to survive years of warehouse knocks. This post follows the forklift from the first powered platform trucks to today's electric trucks, looks at the new 10 to 18 ton electric models from HD Hyundai XiteSolution, and describes a welding line at Toyota Material Handling Europe that ABB confirms. It also asks where the new ABB IRB 1700 could fit.

A Coventry Climax ET 199 fork lift truck, a vintage design from the era of the first powered trucks. Photo: DeFacto / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.5)

How lift trucks went from hoists to production lines

Before the forklift, loads moved by hand hoists and trolleys. In 1906 the Pennsylvania Railroad introduced battery-powered platform trucks for luggage at its Altoona station. Clark in the United States began developing powered lift tractors for its own factories in 1917, which became the Tructractor. In Britain, Ransomes, Sims and Jefferies of Ipswich developed material handling equipment during the First World War, partly because labor was short. Towmotor entered the lift truck market in 1919 and Yale and Towne followed in 1920.

A forklift truck loads barrels into a rail car at the Port of Izmail in 1949. Photo: museum archive via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

The truck kept changing. Hydraulic power, the first electric forklifts and standardized pallets spread through the 1920s and 1930s, and the Second World War drove demand again. A photograph shows a Clark Tructractor in Royal Air Force use in 1942. In 1954 the British company Lansing Bagnall built what was claimed to be the first narrow-aisle electric reach truck. We found no source on how the early trucks were welded and painted, but the steel frames, masts and forks had to be joined and finished in the plants that built them.

A Clark Tructractor in Royal Air Force markings, 1942. Photo: kitmasterbloke / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

No source we found dates the first welding robots in a lift truck plant, so this post does not guess. The work is structural arc welding on large, thick parts that vary from model to model, with a positioner that turns the part so the torch can reach each joint. ABB robots do that kind of welding in other heavy industries, such as the IRB 1600ID that welds hoist mast sections on a positioner at STROS in the Czech Republic. A lift truck mast or carriage is the same kind of job, and powder coating is the usual finish that follows welding.

An ABB IRB 1600ID robot welding a hoist mast section on a positioner at STROS in the Czech Republic. Photo: ABB

Electric trucks, robot lines at Toyota and the IRB 1700

The newest forklift news is about size and electrification. On 5 October 2026 HD Hyundai XiteSolution announced 10 to 18 ton electric forklifts, now in mass production at its Eumseong plant, after a test drive event there. The 18 ton model can run up to nine hours, and with an optional 120 kW fast charger its battery reaches 80% in about 1.5 hours. The company says the trucks match diesel on speed and gradeability, and it targets shipyards, ports and steel mills that have relied on diesel.

A Heli CPD15 electric counterbalanced forklift at work indoors, 2026. Photo: P1898 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

Toyota Material Handling Europe shows what the factory side looks like. Its Mjölby plant in Sweden is the company's largest in Europe, and a company blog from 2020 says it builds over 80,000 electric forklifts a year with more than 100 industrial robots in welding and painting. ABB's Swedish news item describes a new, highly automated welding line for forks and fork carriages that replaced an aging cell. The plant said spare parts were hard to get and the old cell could not reach the capacity it needed. Löfqvist Engineering integrated the line with ABB Robotics.

A Toyota forklift working behind a fence at a factory in Shenzhen. Photo: Dinkun Chen / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Toyota also chose electric clamps over pneumatic ones for sustainability, and a post by an integrator-linked engineer says the line uses SCHUNK electric grippers wired into the robot control, on ABB's OmniCore platform. ABB announced the IRB 1700 and IRB 1700ID on 13 October 2026, with payloads of 6 to 12 kg, up to 20% shorter cycle times and a footprint 50% smaller than its predecessor. ABB lists arc welding among their tasks, so they could suit smaller forklift parts. No source ties them to a lift truck plant, so that is a possibility. Our post on factory AMRs replacing forklifts covers the other side.

An ABB welding robot and positioner in a workshop. Photo: Ana 2016 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

What forklift lines and lift trucks need next

Electrification changes the build. HD Hyundai describes high voltage battery systems and electric motors rated IP67 or higher, so assembly and test steps shift toward electrical work. Makers also want to handle more variants without long stops. Offline programming helps here: an integrator can build and test a welding cell in RobotStudio before the line is changed. Cobot welding, such as ABB's GoFa arc welding package, could suit small batches of brackets that do not justify a full cell.

The nameplate of a Heli electric counterbalanced forklift, listing an 80 V battery and 1500 kg rated capacity. Photo: P1898 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

Forklifts rarely reach homes, so the effect on households is small. The lesson for small makers is Toyota's order of work. Toyota automated step by step, with an automated tow tractor feeding the welding shop on a schedule since 2019 and 10 automated stacker trucks in goods receiving since early 2020, instead of automating everything at once. Its blog quotes the kaizen idea of small, continuous improvements. A small truck maker could copy that path, starting with one welding cell and growing from it.

A Toyota walkie stacker on a truck lift gate in Irvine, Florida. Photo: DanTD / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The open problems are cost, skills and safety. A robotic welding line costs far more than a manual jig, and thick structural welds need skilled people to program and check them. Fixtures must be accurate, because a robot welds where the part is, not where it should be. Safety matters at both ends: a forklift is a heavy machine around people, and a welding cell has fumes, arcs and moving positioners. Skills for maintaining electric clamps and OmniCore controllers have to be in the building.

ABB's GoFa Cobot Arc Welding Package on a welding table. Photo: ABB

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