New pickup truck to go on sale in China in late 2025.

At the event, the company announced that it plans to commence commercial availability of the propane-powered stripped chassis in the second quarter of 2026.

Readers of Truck & Bus Builder will be accustomed by now to news stories reporting the demise of yet another electric vehicle startup. Particularly in Britain and in the USA, several new companies in receipt of millions of dollars of investors’ money – either through venture capital funding rounds or the stock market – have faltered in the past year, reducing their business activities to a fraction of their original scope or ceasing to trade altogether. Yet, in late 2024, while all of this was going on, a small British firm successfully raised a sum of GBP17.3m from investors who could justifiably have refused to cough up a single penny towards yet another electric vehicle proposition. Bucking the trend, Sunswap Ltd is showing that a new entrant can bring out a product that is economically as well as environmentally sustainable.

We spoke with Tim Dortans, Vice President Global Sales – Mobility Road at Hübner, who explained the strategy for growth in two key markets, Turkey and India.

Signs MoUs with Australian dealers.

Bosch announced its decision to discontinue collaboration on solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technologies with Ceres and to consider selling its 17.44% stake in the company which led to a sharp decline in the British firm's share price.

The company announced 2024 sales figures of USD 10.3 billion, a decrease of USD 300 million compared to 2023 figures of USD 10.6 billion. Adjusted EBITA rose by USD 40 million, to USD 885 million in 2024 (2023: USD 845 million). Financially, the company is healthy with an operating cash flow of USD 476 million and a sales backlog of USD 650 million.

New Jakarta office to strengthen marketing and sales operations.

In the 2000s, there were three major manufacturers of buses and bus bodies in the United Kingdom: Alexander Dennis of Scotland; Wrightbus of Northern Ireland; and Optare, a relatively young company based in the north of England. For a time, Optare probably accounted for a quarter of the buses and coaches produced in the UK. Optare entered the 2020s under a new name, Switch Mobility Ltd, signalling its intention to embrace the electric era wholeheartedly. However, among the British manufacturers, it remains firmly in third place: according to statistics provided by Switch, it sold 33 buses in 2022, 44 in 2023, and 125 in 2024. In that same period, Switch’s plant in England has produced more than two hundred vehicles, the vast majority of which were sold to various UK operators, including Stagecoach, Arriva, and many more. 

Reduced volumes in the truck and powertrain sectors, reduce 2024 revenues but lower operating costs deliver improved margins.

On 30 September 2024, Britain’s last remaining coal-fired power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar was closed down. Opened in 1968, the power station had a capacity of 2,000 MW and annual carbon emissions in the millions of tonnes when it was decommissioned. Today, local authorities and consortia have new ambitions for the old plants: to repurpose the existing infrastructure for the production of green hydrogen. That was the message carried away by news reporters who attended an open day at the Loughborough University campus on 8 November. Visitors got to see some mature products of the transition taking place in the east midlands. These were the fuel-cell-powered vehicles displayed by Intelligent Energy Ltd in front of its headquarters on the edge of the campus.

“Despite substantial investments, including GBP 25 million in UK government grants, the vision of vehicle manufacturing has failed,” the British startup said in a press release announcing its change of strategy.