Heavy-equipment manufacturer Sany has launched a new line of electric products, highlighting an emerging industry trend that some dealers are reluctant to embrace.

Sany’s new electric products include a pair of large excavators, a truck-mounted concrete pump, a truck crane and a crawler crane. The United Nations’ 2023 Financing for Sustainable Development Report prompted the Chinese company to develop the new machinery, according to an Aug. 14 news release.

The electric construction equipment market was valued at roughly $12.2 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow 18.6% annually to $67.4 billion by 2033, according to Custom Market Insights.

While an increase of electric products seems inevitable, some heavy-equipment dealers argue that they don’t offer any advantages beyond the sustainability component.

“It runs a fraction of the time that a normal diesel-powered machine runs, and then when it stops running, you have to hook it up to a diesel generator and wait for it to charge” Harley Brattain, general manager of Aurora, Ore.-based Equipment NW, a certified Sany dealer, told Equipment Finance News. “So, you’re paying more, it’s a lot less convenient and you have to haul additional equipment … There’s no financial benefit whatsoever.”

SY19E

Larry DuPaix, owner of Salt Lake City-based Sany dealer Atlas Machinery, said there are some benefits to electric machinery, although challenges such as a dearth of charging stations and inadequate strength remain a question.

“Out here in Utah, I’d say 75% to 80% of the jobs are not going to have a good charging source for electric machines,” DuPaix told EFN. “We’ve heard that they’re fast — the speed of the boom, the speed of the attachment, the speed of the tracks are really good. But they don’t have as much torque as a diesel-powered machine will have.”

Brattain and DuPaix said they had yet to study Sany’s new electric products, specifically, but spoke highly of the brand for its quality and relative affordability.

Cost differences

The upfront cost of electric equipment is typically higher than traditional machinery, according to dealers. An electric Bobcat excavator, for instance, went for roughly $72,000 at a recent auction, about $5,000 more than a comparable non-electric Bobcat excavator, Atlas’ DuPaix said.

However, opting for electric machinery may be more cost-effective in the long run. A 60-ton electric excavator can save more than $17,000 annually in fuel and operating costs, according to a 2023 report from technology research firm IDTechEx. Sany’s new SY870E large excavator can reduce operational costs by more than 30% compared to traditional models, according to the release.

Higher upfront costs could be an extra hurdle when trying to obtain financing for electric machinery, especially given the tight lending climate that has hampered the equipment finance industry since last year, Equipment NW’s Brattain said.

“It’s more difficult to get people financed, in general,” he said. “If you’re already having a tough time qualifying for something that’s $50,000 and if this thing costs $70,000, you’re going to have a harder time.”

DuPaix said it may take some time for lenders to embrace new electric machinery but doesn’t suspect it will be a long-term challenge.

Tough to sell

Brattain hasn’t observed an uptick in demand for electric products at Equipment NW or other dealerships in the area, he said.

“Some of the really big Cat dealers or large [John Deere] dealers, they might keep an electric on a showroom floor, and it’s probably just to show that they have it as an option,” he said.

There has also been minimal demand in the North Texas market, Matthew Isgrig, a sales representative at Fort Worth Sany dealer Landmark Equipment, told EFN.

“We’re not going to stock anything electric because we may not sell it, and then we won’t want to floor plan it,” Isgrig said. “You don’t want to pay interest on something that’s going to sit for five years.”

Isgrig likewise commended Sany as a brand but expressed skepticism over the move toward electric machinery.