Ballard will supply fuel cell systems as part of the development of a Ford FCEV prototype truck in Turkey. The deal initially will see Ballard supply two FCmove XD 120 kW fuel cell engines planned for Q4, 2023 delivery. The engines will be integrated into Ford F-Max 44-tonne long-haul tractors as part of developing the Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV) F-MAX prototype.

The exhibition, which took place from the 6th to the 7th of September, attracted over 150 exhibitors involved in low-carbon mobility. The exhibition had a small collection of companies dedicated to the commercial vehicle market sector.

A contract has been signed with the North Macedonia Free Zones Authority (TIDZ), which has helped with finding suitable land and tax incentives and which is expected to see more than 60 production lines be built by 2028.

The project aims to build a commercially competitive 44-tonne proof of concept Hydrogen Fuel Cell (HFC) heavy goods tractor unit. With funding from the UK’s Advanced Propulsion Centre, project ICEBreaker is set to begin next month (October 2023) with the aim of developing lighter, more efficient hydrogen fuel cell Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) with a lower cost of ownership.

Production is to take place at Temsa’s factory in Adana, with a prototype expected by next year and series production towards the end of 2025. Both engineering teams will be working closely together in order to meet these deadlines.

The IE-Drive 100 hydrogen fuel cell (HFC) utilises the company’s “patented evaporatively cooled (EC) technology”, whilst the hydrogen fuel cell stack delivers 155kW of power. In terms of the architecture, the design is centred around ‘blending’ the desired performance with the space constraints of LCVs. IE stated the HFC is currently being tested with various UK partners.

The funding is to come from the Department for Transport (DfT), National Highways, HS2 Ltd, Network Rail and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Following the framework sale of the e-Jest electric shuttle bus in the right-hand drive market in Japan earlier this year - Karsan is now exploring entry into the UK market with first deliveries planned for 2024.

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.

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 Ferndale facility has the capacity to produce up to 850 ‘Vicinity Classic’ and ‘Vicinity Lightning’ (i.e., ICE and EV) buses and 6,250 ‘VMC 1200’ battery electric trucks per year.