The brownfield problem: why APAC’s electric terminal equipment transition is an infrastructure question, not an equipment one
Electric yard tractors, reach stackers and container handlers are now commercially available from multiple global OEMs. The machines are not the bottleneck. Grid capacity, yard reconfiguration and the economics of retrofitting decades-old terminals are.
Walk the halls of any port equipment exhibition today and you will find electric variants of nearly every piece of heavy-duty container-handling machinery on the market. Kalmar offers a battery-electric reach stacker with lifting capacities up to 45 tonnes. SANY launched a 50-tonne electric reach stacker in 2025 with a 512 kWh swappable battery pack and regenerative braking on the boom. Hyster has introduced factory-integrated lithium-ion models across the 7,000–18,000 kg range and is extending electric power into container handlers, reach stackers and terminal tractors. The catalogue, in short, has caught up with the ambition.
Yet across Asia Pacific, diesel equipment still dominates working terminals. Market data reinforces the gap: diesel-powered machinery accounted for roughly 60 per cent of the global container-handling equipment market in 2025, according to Fundamental Business Insights, and while APAC represents nearly half the market by value, the region’s electrification rate for heavy-duty yard equipment remains low relative to both its throughput volumes and its stated decarbonisation targets.
You need a free subscription to read the entire article.
Subscribe
Subscribe for FREE and gain access to all our content.
More than 5000+ articles.
Related Posts
Other News
Container Management (cm) has been published for more than 30 years serving the port, terminal, intermodal and container handling equipment industries worldwide.
