2020-05-23
The development of fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) that use hydrogen as a fuel for heavy-duty trucks is accelerating. Since the start of 2020, major manufacturers such as Hino, Isuzu, and Daimler have been announcing cooperation with other companies one after another.
In April, Daimler and Volvo announced that they would establish a 50-50 joint venture to develop and mass produce fuel cell heavy-duty trucks.
Sales of electric version of GAZelle Next LCV have begun in Germany. Stuttgart company EFA-S is modifying Russian vehicles. The assembly started this year.
The German company purchases LCVs in Russia without transmission, engine and fuel system. Then in Stuttgart they install an electric motor and battery.
Currently, four versions of the electric vehicle are available – a side truck, a wagon, a 2-cabin wagon and a mini-bus. All LCVs are powered by a 110 kWt electric motor and can reach a speed of 88 km/hour.
KAMAZ driverless trucks have been tested in the Eastern-Messoyakh oilfield in the Nenetsky region. The vehicles were driven 2,500 kilometers without accidents.
The joint project of Gazpromneft and KAMAZ was put together with support of region authorities in difficult climate conditions beyond the Polar Circle. The main target of tests was to determine the efficiency of driverless trucks, which would increase safety of cargo transportation and optimize supplies to territories with difficult access.
During the tests, the driverless trucks showed high potential to move on pre-set routes with high accuracy, to exchange information via duplicated communication systems, to recognize obstacles and forecast movements on actual environment.
Twelve automakers in Russia are counting on privileged credits for working capital support of backbone enterprises during the COVID struggle.
Under the program, a company must have revenue of US$300 million (20 billion rubles) and employ more than 1000 people. A special bank product has been designed for such companies. The bank interest on this credit will be subsidized within the base interest rate of Russian Central Bank, and half of the credit will be warranted by the Ministry of Finances. Read The Article
New car sales plummeted by 102,000 vehicles in April, the largest monthly car sales decline in history in Russian, according to the Association of European Business.
During April, Russia introduced strict quarantine measures because of the coronavirus, causing car sales to fall by 102,089 units, or 72.4%.
After strong sales in March, dealers have had to suspend or restrict their activity.
“Black April” has dealt a strong blow to dealer cash liquidity, and seriously affected stability during middle-term period. The dealers are preparing to restart their business in May; however, they don’t expect significant sales growth.
AutoVAZ , the largest Russian car manufacturer, reported sales declined by three times in April over March.
Even before the COVID-19 crisis, the Indian automotive sector was facing a severe downturn, but the problems were amplified by the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns across India and the rest of the world. The situation was compounded because India was transitioning from BS-IV to the BS-VI era.
These are challenging times for the Indian automotive sector because of slow economic growth, negative consumer sentiment, axle load norms, a liquidity crunch, low capacity utilization and potential bankruptcies. The current lockdown has severely affected the entire ecosystem of engine driven applications in India.
For the first time, automobile OEMs reported zero domestic sales and very limited exports in April. According to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the industry is losing more than $300 million per day.
Production has resumed in ARGO Tractors plants after being shut down for almost two months. Different measures were put in place in order to comply with government health regulations. In April ARGO started to sanitize the factories and prepare to resume operations. Protection equipment is distributed to workers who must keep social distancing and whose temperature is registered at the entrance of the factories.
Source: Argo Tractors Read The Article
Source: PSR OE Link™
PSR Analysis: The prolonged halt in production and the continuous uncertainty related to the development of the coronavirus pandemic had a significant impact on the global agricultural industry and on ARGO tractor volumes. Despite that, with the re-opening of the production lines the Italian OEM was able to address the orderbook received before the start of the lockdown, and at the same time, collect new orders.
According to our forecast, we expect production to be down 16% this year. However, this performance might turn a bit less bitter if the current pandemic evolution does not result in a second wave of lockdowns in the coming months. PSR
Emiliano Marzoli is Senior-Business Development Manager-Europe
The 88,300 units is the estimate by Power Research of the number of Personal Watercraft (PWC) to be produced in North America (Canada, Mexico and the United States) 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.
Harley-Davidson said US sales were up 6.6% in the quarter before the pandemic ground the economy to a halt in mid-March. But sales wound up plunging 15.5% in America compared to a year ago and 20.7% internationally. Overall revenue slipped 8% from last year’s first quarter.
For the quarter, Harley-Davidson posted earnings of $69.7 million compared with $127.9 million in the same period a year ago.
Harley-Davidson’s share in the U.S. heavyweight motorcycle market share was down 2.2 percentage points, to 48.9% and the company’s share of the heavyweight motorcycle market in Europe was 7.6% in the first quarter.
In response to the COVID-19 crisis, Harley has reduced planned capital spending, frozen hiring, temporarily reduced salaries, eliminated merit increases for employees in 2020 and changed the timing of new product launches in order to preserve $250 million in 2020.
The word “hybrid” in the power generation universe has generally been understood to mean a fossil-fuel engine supplemented by another power source, usually a renewable.
Then, the word grew to include vehicles and equipment that ran primarily on battery power but could be switched to a smaller engine that would recharge the battery while it ran.
Now, we are entering a time when “hybrid” includes drive systems that are primarily renewable-based and supplemented by an additional renewable system.
In this sphere, alternative power has primarily meant batteries and hydrogen fuel cells; one of the major impediments to wide adoption has always been range.
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