Speaking with Deniz Cetin, Chief Commercial Officer at Karsan Automotive & Board Member at Group Companies at Cenex (2023), T&BB was informed that Karsan has bid on autonomous electric bus contracts (tenders) in Spain, Israel, Qatar and Canada. Deniz confirmed that Karsan recently delivered an autonomous bus to Istanbul which comes off the back of two successful autonomous bus trials in Norway and the USA.

With production expected to be completed by the end of 2026, the USD 550 million investment is expected to create 380 jobs and support the increased production of CV tyres, all equipped with RFID (radio frequency identification) tags that enable more efficient asset management, including retreading.

Higer completed the delivery of 780 Higer Buses worth USD55m to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under the “Belt and Road Initiative”, signifying the largest ever bus export from China to Saudi Arabia.

About the retrofit of the H2 ICE engine, Lord Bamford, JCB Chairman, said: “We have retrofitted this vehicle with a JCB hydrogen engine to demonstrate how simple it will be to convert existing vans and to show that it is not only construction and agricultural machines that can be powered by hydrogen. While converting vans will not be for JCB to do, it does prove there is something else other than batteries that can work very effectively.”

With USD10m in additional shareholder funds the company will focus on deployment of electric tarmac buses at Bengaluru international airport and development of a mid-mile heavy-duty EV truck platform.

The Ghent factory is assembling battery electric versions of the heavy-duty FH, FM, and FMX ranges on the same production line as the diesel and natural gas ones.

Lumax Auto already supplies engine oil under the the 'Ultra' brand name.

New trails of electric parcel delivery vans will take place shortly ahead of an announcement by First Hydrogen of when and where it will to start series production. First Hydrogen says the aim of the trials is to gather more data on fuel consumption, usage and efficiency, to calculate the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) more accurately.

The significance of this investment for InoBat is that this will provide access to Gotion's research and development, its raw materials (lithium etc.) supply chain, cell production and recycling capabilities which will accelerate InoBat’s path to series and large-scale production of battery cells.

The vehicle shown was a 26-tonne ‘E-Tech D Wide’ 6x2 chassis with inward folding "bus-style" doors and low step height.

According to group figures, the Commercial Vehicle Systems (CVS) Division has profited from positive market developments, with incoming orders and an order book of EUR 2,212 million, up 15.8% on the previous year’s corresponding order book value (H1/22: EUR 1,911m).

Whilst South Korea’s biggest tyre manufacturer prepares for the launch of its new electric bus tyre range later this year, we decided to have a closer look at the rise of this tyre giant hailing from the East.