The battery-powered heavy-duty trucks are used in opencast coal mining in Yimin.

Startling claims were made by two panellists on the mainstage of the Anaheim convention centre on the first day of the ACT Expo. The first – Peter Ludwig – announced that software-defined vehicles will make today’s vehicles look as outmoded as the steam train. The second claim came from David Liu, who said that self-driving vehicles will be the industry’s greatest invention since the diesel engine. These men have business interests in the development of software-defined and autonomous vehicles; we would expect them to say as much. A moderate response to the advent of these technologies came from Sherry Sanger – executive vice president of strategy and marketing at Penske Transportation Solutions – who sat on a different panel: she warned delegates not to rashly take up a new technology or “solution” without first having a clearly-defined problem for it to solve.

Providing 356 kilowatt hours of energy storage, these battery packs carry nickel-manganese-cobalt cells which are packaged at MAN’s facility in Nuremberg.

Following shareholder approval, Plus will enter into a business combination that will generate up to USD300m in gross proceeds while also giving it access to the public financial market.

This accreditation means the bus can operate “on a planned route without a driver in the cab,” significantly expanding Karsan’s autonomous e-bus operations beyond existing deployments in Italy,  Switzerland and Finland.

The ATLAS-L4 truck completed an autonomous journey along a 7 km stretch of the A81 autobahn near Stuttgart, operating without driver intervention. This real-world demonstration follows two years of intensive development and testing by a consortium of 11 partners, including truck manufacturer MAN.

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.

The autonomous e-ATAK is also operating in Switzerland and Finland.

Following on from an agreement signed last year to develop a self-driving tractor, Kalmar and Forterra are now in the second round of tests of their jointly developed solution.

The next batch of e-trucks will be delivered later this year until the completion of all 100 by the end of 2026, which will support 1600 container movements a day, aiming to save up to 14,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) and 158 tonnes of nitrogen oxides (NOx) annually.

The hope is that these autonomous operations will stimulate the further expansion of fuel infrastructure for hydrogen trucks, producing a “self-reinforcing cycle of vehicle adoption, infrastructure development, and lower operational costs per unit”.

The two autonomous vehicle firms announced separate partnerships with chip designer Nvidia Corporation to integrate Nvidia products in their self-driving trucks.