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.

Hino Motors USA has appointed Davey Jung to the position of President, CEO and Chairman of the Board effective immediately. Jung succeeds outgoing President, Masamichi Mizukoshi who is retiring.

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.

Zita Zigan, Director, Global Commercial Vehicle Forecasts at GlobalData, in a webinar held at the end of June, provided a positive outlook for the global truck market in 2023, 2024 and beyond. Zigan, in her presentation, highlighted some of the many factors influencing different markets in Europe, North America and the BIC countries. Below is a summary of some of her analysis of the global truck markets.

The Ghent factory is assembling battery electric versions of the heavy-duty FH, FM, and FMX ranges on the same production line as the diesel and natural gas ones.

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.

The vehicle shown was a 26-tonne ‘E-Tech D Wide’ 6x2 chassis with inward folding "bus-style" doors and low step height.

The EPA has proposed the introduction of more stringent restrictions on the emission of greenhouse gases and nitrogen oxides from heavy-duty vehicles as soon as model year 2027.

Sales of medium- and heavy-duty rigid trucks in India witnessed a vast contraction of 61.5% in the fourth quarter of FY2019-20 to register just 30,973 units, down from 80,355 units during the same quarter of the previous year (2018-19).

Isuzu Motors Ltd and car giant, Honda Motor Ltd, in January signed an agreement to carry out joint research to develop fuel-cell-powered heavy-duty trucks.

The Volvo Group has agreed to sell its Japanese subsidiary, UD Trucks, prefecture to Isuzu Motors Ltd, in a deal worth a reported USD2.3bn, as the fast evolving global commercial vehicle market continues to put huge investment demands on the industry.

French automotive components manufacturer, Faurecia SA, has won a contract to supply hydrogen storage systems for trucks built by Hyundai Motor Company of Seoul.