MD Andrew Simpson. Tufftruk has OEM business with prominent suppliers worldwide - including Bergmann Dumpers, as seen. ELECTRIC DREAMS
Tufftruk has been pushing the benefits of battery power for many years now. As the company prepares to bring two new products to market, we caught a chat with MD Andrew Simpson
T
here are certain products that don’t really need to be any better than they
already are. I might have thought that about Tufftruk’s range of powered mini-dumpers, which do their job with consummate ease, but such wrongheaded notions are soon undone by genial managing director, Andrew Simpson, who is keen to show off the two new machines the company has been developing – a nimble half-tonner and a new variant of the ever-popular ‘Truxta’, which has been optimised with economy and UK hirers in mind.
The new EB300 is just 730mm wide.
The company itself reaches far beyond the borders of its Leek HQ, although all machinery is still made in the UK. Tufftruk had only recently moved into its current premises when we reported on the company in the Nov/Dec 2019 edition, but now has OEM business with Multiquip in the USA, Mexico and Canada; Flextool in Australia, Youngman Richardson in New Zealand, as well as having distribution in Europe. Its machinery is plainly finding favour overseas,
but it seems that we’re a bit slower to catch on over here.
“It’s a really tough market in the UK,” explains Andrew. “Hire Station were the first national to understand what we’re about, and has bought a few machines, Speedy has ordered some for later this year, and Boels is adding a few more to its fleet.
“The new EB300 is designed to improve UK sales, with a focus on productivity, health and safety. European companies would much rather let the machine take the strain than the worker. I’d say around 85% of our business is export at the moment.”
On that, the electric BENDie Truxta remains the biggest seller in the Tufftruk portfolio, but employs lead-acid instead of lithium-ion batteries. Why is that?
“The cost is relatively low, compared to lithium, they provide ballast at the back of the machine, they’re low-maintenance and
28 Executive Hire News - June 2022
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