Earlier this month at the Commercial Vehicle Show at the NEC in Birmingham, T&BB spoke to Greg Ethridge, the Chief Financial Officer of American EV manufacturer, Canoo Inc who confirmed that the company had indeed purchased manufacturing assets (robotics and machinery equipment) from now defunct, Arrival Ltd. The manufacturing assets are set to be shipped by sea to the Canoo manufacturing facility in Oklahoma City, in the U.S.A.

February saw PepsiCo take delivery of its first electric heavy-duty truck in Brazil; a semi-heavy rigid (15t ≤ gvw up to 40 tons) P25 6x2 Scania truck, produced in Sweden, which is to be used for internal logistics goods distribution operations between PepsiCo’s four factories* in the state of São Paulo.

The order consists of 300 Crossway low-entry buses, 50 Evadys coaches and 60 Daily minibuses, set to be delivered between Q4 2024 and Q1 2025. These vehicles will operate in the port city of Abidjan.

The company has appointed Amy Kulikowski as its new Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer, reporting directly to the new Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Craig Aaron.

According to the latest agreement, the companies plan to co-develop electric heavy-duty trucks (both battery-electric and fuel-cell electric) for the European market.

The acquisition is part of a EUR54m investment by the National Transport Authority which will fund the replacement of Limerick’s bus fleet with battery-powered vehicles.

Siemens has launched the 400kW DC SICHARGE D fast charger for the electric HGV market. The charger allows for up to four vehicles to be charged simultaneously using only one grid connection, optimising space and delivering financing savings for Charge Point Operators (CPOs).

Using EasyMile’s autonomous driving technology and Rocsys’ ‘ROC-1’ hands-free charger, the two companies plan to completely automate the process of recharging a self-driving electric vehicle.

Autocar Chairman, Andrew Taitz said that setting up hands-free charging at terminals would improve efficiency and therefore boost productivity in yard operations.

The facility houses 65 DC 180kW fast chargers with a capacity to charge 200 electric HGVs a day. Einride claims that this is the largest electric HGV charging station in North America.

The 60 GWh gigafactory, called ‘Northvolt Drei’, is being built in the town of Heide in Schleswig-Holstein.

Longstanding investors in the vehicle connectivity firm include Cummins, Daimler Truck North America, and Paccar.