Wacker Neuson Expands EV Offerings

German construction machine manufacturer Wacker Neuson has introduced a new product to their electric range.  The EZ17e is an electric zero tail mini excavator with lithium ion batteries and flexible charge management. 

Emiliano Marzoli
Emiliano Marzoli

The machine can be charged both with household 110v plugs or with a 415 volts quick charging point.  In the latter case only four hours are required to complete the charge.

According to the OEM, one battery charge can last a full workday.  In addition, it is possible to charge the machine on site while idling.  The machine allows monitoring of the power supply of the construction site to make sure it is not overloaded.  

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DATAPOINT: 2020 NA Off-Highway Truck Production Forecast Is 1,200 Units

The 1,200 units is the estimate by Power Systems Research of the number of Off-Highway Trucks to be produced in North America (Canada and the U.S.) in 2020.

This information comes from industry interviews and from two proprietary databases maintained by Power Systems Research: EnginLink™ , which provides information on engines, and OE Link™, a database of equipment manufacturers.

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Briggs & Stratton Files Chapter 11, Sets Sale Agreement

Briggs & Stratton (B&S) one of the  largest producers of gasoline engines for outdoor power equipment, and a manufacturer of power generation, pressure washer, lawn and garden, turf care and job site products, has filed Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

Michael Aistrup
Michael Aistrup

The company has obtained $677.5 million in financing, with $265 million committed by KPS and the remaining $412.5 from the company’s existing group of lenders.

B&S also announced it has entered into a definitive stock and asset purchase agreement with KPS Capital Partners. Under the terms of the agreement, an affiliate of KPS formed for purposes of this transaction has agreed to acquire substantially all the company’s assets and assume certain customer, employee and vendor liabilities.

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The Green Future Has Big Oil’s Backing

BP’s action might be a pivotal moment where the green revolution stops being something, we are all dragged into and starts being an opportunity for the most responsive and agile innovators to rebrand themselves and capture new markets.  

Tyler Wiegert
Tyler Wiegert

For many people, the moment when COVID-19 became real was when the NBA announced the cancellation of the rest of its season. I was sitting at the counter of the coffee shop in the lobby of my Las Vegas hotel at CON-EXPO. My colleagues and I had been talking for a couple days about the odds of catching the virus at the show, but we all had made the decision that we would be ok attending.

And then we saw that announcement. By the end of the day, we had all decided to go home as soon as possible, and the show had announced it was ending a day early. As a 26-year-old who just caught the tail end of the millennial generation, there haven’t been a lot of things in my memory where I can look back and say, in the moment, it felt like things were different now. I was too young to remember 9/11, and I wasn’t politically engaged enough to understand what the first African-American president meant historically. But this morning as I was catching up on the news and thinking about the subject of this article, I read that BP had made an announcement about a major environmental initiative, and as I read it, I had a feeling like at that coffee bar in Las Vegas.

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COVID Creates Challenges and Opportunities in Power Gen

If you were hoping for COVID-19 to disappear from the news by the school year, it’s obviously not going to happen. With major companies like Google announcing they won’t be sending employees back to their offices until the summer of 2021 and COVID metrics climbing again in the South and West, we probably will be working on the impact of the pandemic well into next year.

Tyler Wiegert
Tyler Wiegert

It could almost be considered a truism to say that COVID-19 has been bad for business. The 33% annualized decline in GDP in Q2 2020 would apparently confirm that, and even the most positive about the economy must concede that a 9.5% single-quarter contraction is painful, to say the least. With businesses closed and housing starts in June lagging 4% behind last year, even with the brief reprieve when states began to reopen, the power generation segment has been hit hard by the pandemic.

Cummins, a giant in the industry, announced at the end of July that its revenues for Q2 2020 had fallen 38% from Q2 2019. That increased to 48% when looking at North America alone. Engine sales were down 47%, and power generation revenues declined by 37%. While Cummins was able to achieve positive net income because of a quick ramp-up in production in China after the worst of the virus had passed there, it was less than half of net income from Q2 2019.

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Trucking News: Asking The Expert

Do you expect a sharp slowdown for truck purchases in October due to the possible resurgence of the Coronavirus this fall?

Chris Fisher
Chris Fisher

PSR Analysis: At this point, no.  The “shock and awe” of the pandemic appears to be well behind us.  During the past few months, commercial truck demand has stabilized albeit at a low level but continues to improve. 

Recent surveys have indicated that trucking conditions are improving.  The biggest threat to the health of the industry would be a further lockdown of the economy which would cause trucking conditions to slow but would not likely upend the market.  However, we do believe it will take a further 18-36 months for the economy to return to a pre-virus level.

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DATAPOINT: 2020 Production of NA Off-Highway Trucks Forecast at 1,200 Units

The 1,200 units is the estimate by Power Systems Research of the number of Off-Highway Trucks to be produced in North America (Canada and the U.S.) in 2020.

This information comes from industry interviews and from two proprietary databases maintained by Power Systems Research: EnginLink™ , which provides information on engines, and OE Link™, a database of equipment manufacturers.

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Taiwan Audi Teams with Noodoe To Create Pure Electric Living Space

To continue to promote the deployment of electric vehicles in Taiwan, Taiwan Audi officially entered the pure electric vehicle market at the end of 2019 and launched the “E-tron Future” reservation project.

Erik Martin
Erik Martin

To meet the pure electric future, Taiwan Audi has joined hands with strategic partner Noodoe to accelerate the deployment of Taiwan’s charging network. Evaluating home charging station installation and a cloud-based charging operating system paired with Taiwan Audi’s charging solution aims to realize a pure electric mobile life.

From north to south, Taiwan spans only about 500 kilometers.  At the same time, the main population centers are concentrated in the seven largest metropolitan areas. These cities–while clearly defined–are connected by a comprehensive road network that provides excellent advantages in the development of electric vehicles.

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Russian Government To Pay 60% of Expenses for Switching Vehicles to NG

The Russian government subsidies now will cover 60% of individuals’ and small business’ expenses for switching vehicles from gasoline to NG fuel. That’s up from 30%.

Maxim Sakov
Maxim Sakov

The minister of Power Industry has offered to increase subsidies for switching vehicles belonging to individuals and small business two times – from 30% to 60%. Another 30% will be paid by Gazprom at the expenses of its marketing program. Therefore, vehicle owners should pay only 10% of the cost to switch.

The government will assign US$ 0.7 billion (50 billion Rubles) for development of the NG fuel industry during the period 2020-2024. This includes an annual assignment of 3.5 billion rubles for gas fuel stations and 0.7 billion rubles for fleet modification.

There are 484 gas stations in Russia (May 2020), 329 of them belong to Gazprom. In 2019, the fuel sales on gas stations increased 30%.     Read The Article

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New Restrictions for Import of Right-Wheel Engines to Russia Launched

New restrictions for imports of right-wheel engines to Russia became effective July 1. Completely barred from import are machines of the M2 and M3 class – trucks, buses, LCVs and construction machines.

Maxim Sakov
Maxim Sakov

On top of this, the procedure of Custom’s clearance of right-wheel passenger cars became more complicated. The owner of such car should obtain technical certificate, confirming compliance of car design to the safety requirement.

According to the Federal Customs Service, the amount of payments will depend on ecological class, production date, engine volume and other parameters. This will include processing fee, custom’s tax and utilization fee.      Read The Article

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