Patent ID: 8718843

Claim:
A control method for an industrial vehicle that comprises an engine that supplies power for at least traveling and load-handling, motors that supply power for at least one of said traveling and load-handling and carry out power generation, and a battery that supplies power to said motors or which is charged by the power that is generated by said motors, the control method comprising the steps of: estimating, by a processor, a charge rate of said battery by quantifying a current that is charged to said battery and a current that is discharged from said battery in an estimating step; determining, by the processor, a charge amount for said battery based on said estimated charge rate in a charge amount determining step; determining, by the processor, a charge power that is necessary for said motors to generate said determined charge amount as a correction amount for the power that is supplied by said engine in a power correction amount determining step; and adding, by the processor, said charge power to the supplied power of said engine that has been determined based on the state of said traveling and load-handling in an adding step, wherein the charge amount determining step further includes: carrying out charging by the engine by prioritizing an action of the industrial vehicle when the estimated charge rate is within a range from a first charge rate to a second charge rate lower than the first charge rate; carrying out charging by prioritizing charging by the engine when the estimated charge rate is within a range from the second charge rate to a third charge rate lower than the second charge rate; and carrying out charging while the industrial vehicle is stopped and is not carrying out either traveling and load-handling when the estimated charge rate is lower than the third charge rate.