Exide Technologies Earns Materials Handling Customer Service Award; Sixth Service Excellence Award Received This Calendar Year

PRINCETON, N.J., March 10 -- Exide Technologies (BULLETIN BOARD: EXDTQ) (www.exide.com ), a global leader in stored electrical-energy solutions, has won the prestigious Supplier of the Year Award for 2003 from The Fork Lift Truck Association of the UK.

Exide's Industrial Energy Motive Power group won the award for its Deta batteries program in the UK. The program consists of the supply of motive power batteries, chargers and services to the fork lift truck industry.

The industry award, known as the Archie, is the ultimate accolade for outstanding achievement in the materials handling industry. Exide received the Deta batteries award at the annual Awards for Excellence ceremony, held in Birmingham in the UK on February 8, 2003.

The Fork Lift Truck Association established the Archie in 1996; competition for the award is extremely fierce. Companies competing for the award are nominated by leading manufacturers and voted on by members of the industry, such as Toyota, Translift and Narrow Aisle as well as all forklift truck manufacturers and ancillary suppliers. Final nominees for the 2003 award included MSI Mechforge, North Warwickshire & Hinckley College and Pyroban Group. Exide is the first battery manufacturer to win the accolade.

"All of the people at Exide Technologies, along with our distributors, have worked hard to provide a service to our customers that is second to none," said Neil Bright, president of the Exide Technologies Industrial Energy Group. "Exide's ethos for the Deta program is based on safety, continuity and reliability. Our role is not just to supply batteries, but to provide a dedicated service to our customers."

The Archie award is the sixth customer service award Exide has received in 2003. John Deere recently awarded four "Achieving Excellence" recognitions to Exide for outstanding supplier performance, and Pamida Stores, a leading U.S. retailer, named Exide its Vendor of the Year for 2002.

"Exide has a relentless drive to make our customers successful. We are on a mission to provide world-class operational excellence that encompasses quality, delivery and defect-free products and services," said Craig H. Muhlhauser, Chairman and CEO of Exide Technologies.

About Exide Technologies:

Exide Technologies, with operations in 89 countries and fiscal 2002 net sales of approximately $2.4 billion, is one of the world's largest producers and recyclers of lead-acid batteries. The company's three global business groups - transportation, motive power and network power -- provide a comprehensive range of stored electrical energy products and services for industrial and transportation applications. Transportation markets include original-equipment and aftermarket automotive, heavy-duty truck, agricultural and marine applications, and new technologies for hybrid vehicles and 42-volt automotive applications.

Industrial markets include network power applications such as telecommunications systems, fuel-cell load leveling, electric utilities, railroads, photovoltaic (solar-power related) and uninterruptible power supply (UPS), and motive-power applications including lift trucks, mining and other commercial vehicles.

Further information about Exide, its financial results and other information is available at www.exide.com .

Certain statements in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements as defined by the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. As such, they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results of the company to be materially different from any results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These are enumerated in further detail in the company's Form 10-K.

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