News: Commercial Vehicles

2024-03-17

Van Hool To End City Bus Production in Belgium

GLOBAL REPORT
Chris Fisher
Chris Fisher

Van Hool has announced its exit from the City Bus business and focus on Hydrogen fuel cell coaches which appears to have been a serious miscalculation.  As the market transitions away from internal combustion engine buses toward battery electric buses, Van Hool has been left behind.

Van Hool recently lost a bid for 300 electric city buses to BYD which assembles their buses in Hungary at a lower cost than Van Hool could manufacture these in Belgium.  It was reported that the BYD bid was approximately 20% less than the Van Hool bid. This along with other issues will result in Van Hool ending most if not all of their bus and coach operations in Belgium and transfer the bus and coach making activities to their assembly plant in Macedonia. 

However, Van Hool will need a significant cash infusion in a short period of time to cover the cost of their existing debt and the coming redundancy payments in order to stave off insolvency.

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Recharging Slows Electrification of HD Trucks

CHINA REPORT
Jack Hao
Jack Hao

In 2022, the penetration rate of new energy units in the commercial vehicle market exceeded 10%, and the penetration rate of heavy-duty trucks was close to 5%. The new energy subsidy policy was scheduled to be withdrawn at the end of 2023, but data for the January to October period is basically the same as the previous year. The share of new energy units for the commercial vehicle segment is far lower than the market share of 30.4% for new energy passenger vehicles.

With the accelerated adjustment of China’s transportation structure, it is expected that by 2025, the national railway and water freight volume will increase by 10% and 12%, respectively, compared to 2020, while the road freight volume will relatively decrease. In this context, bulk and ultra long-distance road transportation will gradually exit the market, and the advantages of short and point-to-point road trunk transportation with radii of around 500 kilometers and 300 kilometers will be further highlighted.

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