2024-06-18
China may place 25% tariffs on EVs in retaliation for similar moves by the US and the European Union. Read about this as well as articles on new battery development, the decline in diesel sales and a new battery from CATL in the June 2024 Alternative Power Report from Power Systems Research. PSR
2024-05-25
In April 2024, Volvo announced that it will build a heavy-duty truck manufacturing plant in Mexico to supplement the Group’s U.S. production. The plant will provide additional capacity to support the growth plans of Volvo Trucks and Mack Trucks in the U.S. and Canadian markets, and support Mack truck sales in Mexico and Latin America. The plant is expected to be operational in 2026.
The new plant will be approximately 1.7 million square feet in size, and will focus on production of heavy-duty conventional vehicles for the Volvo and Mack brands. It will be a complete conventional vehicle assembly facility including cab body-in-white production and paint. At the time of this writing, Volvo has not announced the location of the new production facility.
Bosch Powertrain announced the establishment of a commercial vehicle group, aiming to strengthen cross-domain cooperation at the same time it introduced a new electronic pneumatic braking system and intelligent mobility solutions for commercial vehicles at the 2024 Beijing International Automotive Exhibition.
Bosch also has developed an advanced super thermal management system to address the thermal management challenges in the commercial vehicle industry. Bosch says it is optimistic about the development prospects of hydrogen fuel cell commercial vehicles and is actively promoting the adaptive development and promotion of related technologies.
During the Beijing Auto Show, Wang Weiliang, the President of the Board of Bosch Intelligent Transportation Solutions China and the President of Bosch Powertrain Systems China, announced Bosch’s significant strategic initiatives for this year. Wang Weiliang said that China, as the world’s largest commercial vehicle market, is in a golden era of booming development for the commercial vehicle industry.
2024-05-24
The May 2024 Alternative Power Report from Power Systems Research features several stories on Chinese EVs and the impact they are having on European and US markets. There also are stories on hydrogen development and hydrogen fueling stations. PSR
2024-04-17
CATL has launched a battery pack with Yutong Bus Co to power commercial vehicles like buses and trucks. Yutong said the new battery packs will be used in upcoming electric vehicles and that the new long-lasting EV battery has zero degradation through the first 1,000 cycles.
The new EV battery pack, made with CATL, has a 932,000 mile (1.5 million km), 15-year warranty. Yutong calls the long-life battery an industry first. The bus manufacturer introduced another battery with a 10-year and 621,000 mile (1 million km) lifespan.
Brussels, Belgium – After weeks of uncertainty and, finally, a bankruptcy, bus and trailer manufacturer Van Hool can look to the future again. The company trustee has accepted the bid from the competitor VDL – Schmitz-Cargobull. This move was seen by the trustee as the quickest and most efficient way to restart the operations without losing additional company value, and important resources.
Volvo has received authorization from the Ministry of Transportation to begin testing its heavy electric trucks in Brazil. The vehicles will be part of a study and will be able to operate in urban areas, metropolitan regions, and short to medium-distance intercity transportation, aiming to evaluate their performance and impact on pavement in this type of operation.
The transport companies ReiterLog and Ritmo Logística will be the first to operate the Volvo electric trucks. Preliminary results from the study, led by Senatran (National Traffic Department), with technical coordination from Inprotran (National Institute of Traffic and Safety Projects), in partnership with Volvo, Prometeon, UNB, and UFRGS, indicate benefits of operating zero-emission CO2 vehicles, such as high energy efficiency, absence of noise, low vibration levels, and increased driver comfort.
2024-03-17
At a special works council recently, bus manufacturer Van Hool announced over 1,100 jobs will be lost at the company between now and 2027. The redundancies and other job losses are part of the ‘Van Hool Recovery Plan’ the company is introducing to get the business back on track.
The largest number of job losses – about 830 – are planned for this year. Bus production is now being moved to Macedonia, while trailers, industrial vehicles, R&D will remain in Flanders.
Source: VRT News. Read The Article Read This Article, Too
PSR Analysis: Van Hool has struggled recently under the pressure of competition from Chinese manufacturers. Even in the Flanders, home of Van Hool, Chinese bus manufacturer BYD was able to win a public tender for the supply of 300 electric urban busses. The biggest advantage of Chinese companies is the know how and attractive price they can offer on battery powered busses. In recent time, Van Hool has invested heavily in Fuel cells busses, but this move has not pay off.
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.
Like it did with passenger EV rebates in December, Germany has decided to pull the plug on subsidy programs for electric semi-trucks and city buses. What happens to the nation’s commercial EV market now?
When the German government established the funding program for climate-friendly commercial trucks in 2021, the subsidies were seen as a highly effective tool to drive up demand for electric vehicles in the medium- and heavy-duty truck markets.
World Headquarters
St. Paul, MN USA
Detroit Regional Sales
Ann Arbor, MI USA
Campinas, Brazil
