How KOVACO designed the world's first fully electric skid-steer loader — from a blank sheet in 2016 to a machine the industry caught up with years later.
In 2016, no major manufacturer offered a fully electric skid-steer loader. Yet indoor demolition, food and pharmaceutical facilities, tunnelling and noise-sensitive urban sites all needed a compact loader that produced no exhaust and little noise — and the industry still assumed a machine this size had to run on diesel.
KOVACO designed a fully electric skid steer from the ground up — not a diesel machine with a battery added on. Three independent electric motors, two for drive and one for hydraulics, run off a 96 V lead-acid battery pack engineered to double as the machine's counterweight. It kept full compatibility with standard attachments, and an optional remote-control system let the operator step out of dust, noise and hazardous zones entirely.
The Elise 900 reached a 900 kg rated capacity — up to 1,200 kg in the Elise 1200 — with zero emissions, at a time the trade press reported it as the world's first fully electric skid-steer loader, years before Bobcat, Volvo and JCB brought their own electric models to market. Designed, prototyped and built in-house at KOVACO.
Electric mini track loader
Welding positioner
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