Spheros, the specialist in heating, air conditioning, and thermal management systems for buses, has been independent from its former parent Valeo for nearly a year now, and company CEO Mark Sondermann wants people to know it. “We are no longer constrained by the strategic priorities of a larger group,” he told Truck & Bus Builder. “There is now only one priority, and that’s Spheros.” Following the Valeo acquisition in 2016, Spheros adopted its parent’s name; the reclamation of its own name marks a definitive break with the recent past. And the change is a timely one: “We can now be more agile. We can take faster decisions. It gives us the room to act in this very exciting and very dynamic market.”

In an era of volatility and change, some companies not only survive but continue to lead. Leicester-based BPW Ltd (the UK arm of the BPW Group, headquartered in Wiehl, Germany) is one of those companies. Truck & Bus Builder (T&BB) recently travelled to Leicester to discover how the company has retained its market leadership and what lessons the wider commercial vehicle (CV) industry can draw from its approach.

In spite of considerable sums of investment in support of Switch in the UK - Ashok Leyland views closure as possibility for UK subsidiary.

As the market continues to shift toward greener transportation, AEM’s rare-earth-free technology positions it as a distinctive player in the electrification of public transport.

This deployment signifies the first commercial operation of driverless heavy-duty trucks on public roads in the United States. Aurora plans to expand its driverless operations to include routes to El Paso, Texas, and Phoenix, Arizona, by the end of 2025.

Automaker looks to strengthen its lead in US hydrogen fuel cell truck business.

Hyliion’s founder and CEO, Thomas Healy, told show delegates that the company has exited the EV powertrain market and is now focused on the “distributed power networks of the future”, where charging operators and data centres will make their power “at the end location” rather than depending on the grid.

The move gives M&M a larger share of the CV market above 3.5 tons with multiple synergies for growth.

Sales and After-Sales director, Mauricio Santana says the goal is to finish this year with at least 80 dealerships strategically distributed throughout the country.

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.