At this year’s Busworld Turkey, held between 29-31 May at the Istanbul Expo Center, I met with Şikar and Ünlü to discuss the past, present, and future of Maxion Wheels’ business activities in the country. While much of our conversation revolved naturally around the bus and coach industry, I learned a lot about wheel production for all segments, including light vehicles and trucks. Moreover, we talked in depth about what has made Turkey such an attractive location for industry, and why it will continue to be a good place to do business despite the ongoing currency crisis.

The workshop caters for both ICE and e-vans of all brands, including the repair of batteries. Thirty new jobs have been created along with the installation of eight EV chargers for customers.

This will create a network of green hydrogen production facilities for various purposes (international shipping, trucking etc). This aligns with California’s plans to cut CO2 emissions by two million tonnes annually and reach carbon neutrality by 2045.

Creating 200 new jobs, the plant is responsible for producing the Global Scalable Brake Control (GSBC) and Global Scalable Air Treatment (GSAT) products that enable automated driving.

June saw Knorr-Bremse open a new manufacturing plant in Dalian in China’s Liaoning province, as it looks to increase its share of the local market for commercial vehicle braking systems.

The company was previously occupying a shared facility with Mercedes-Benz Passenger Cars. The new premises was already home to Daimler Truck UK’s parts logistics centre with a 140,000-square-foot warehouse. 

There were many companies at the latest ACT Expo presenting variations on the theme of what one might call “Electric-Fleet-as-a-service” – that is to say, a contractual relationship where the operator has the upfront costs and hassles of switching to an electric fleet taken out of its hands by a “turnkey” service provider. One such company I spoke with was Revolv, whose CEO, Scott Davidson, feels that terms such as “X-as-a-service” and “turnkey” have been diluted through overuse. “Our product is performance,” he said.

This expansion will boost its annual capacity of light truck and passenger tyres to 18 million annually by 2027. This will help the company service growing demand in the Asia Pacific market.

Almost one year on from pilot production, May 2024 saw VWCO in collaboration with Volkswagen Argentina start series production of four truck models and a bus chassis in Argentina.

The new warehouse is intended to improve logistics and production at the site, where aluminium doors, automatic door systems, and ramps and lifts are made for buses, coaches, and trains.

Between 12-13 June, Schmitz Cargobull AG hosted members of the press at its trailer factory in Vreden, located just on the border with the Netherlands. The ostensible reason for our visit was to receive a sneak preview of the company’s newest transport refrigeration product, which will be unveiled at the next IAA Transportation in Hanover: in fact, we learned much more about the company’s plans to expand and modernise its trailer factory, where it produces the ‘S.KO’ refrigerated models and the ‘S.BO’ dry freight range.

According to Global Vice President  Eric Guter, each high-capacity station will be able to refuel 200 heavy-duty trucks or 2000 cars per day. This is a strategic move by the company (the largest supplier of hydrogen in the world) which already operates six hydrogen refuelling stations in Southern California. California was chosen due to the large green State subsidies available.