Bridgestone Americas has made a minority investment in Kodiak Robotics. The partnership will allow Bridgestone to integrate its smart-sensing tyre technologies and fleet solutions into Kodiak's level 4 autonomous trucks.

Hydrogen fuel cell, truck and bus builder, Hyzon Motors has taken an order for 70 hydrogen fuel cell-powered heavy-duty trucks from Austrian grocery store chain with almost 300 locations.

Voith Turbo GmbH has introduced a new medium-duty version of its Voith Electrical Drive System. Suited to various public transport applications for those OEMs and new start-ups shifting or moving into electric mobility, the new medium-duty version, provides up to 260kW output with maximum torque of 2,850Nm.

Alfdex AB has won a contract to supply crankcase gas separators for a new engine platform with a major domestic truck manufacturer in China. 

Hübner GmbH & Co KG (Hübner Group) of Kassel Germany has acquired Dutch electro-hydraulic chassis steering specialist, V.S.E. Vehicle Systems Engineering B.V. of Veenendaal, Netherlands, for an undisclosed sum from Weber-Hydraulik Group, which has owned VSE since 2014.

Sales of LCV goods carrier (truck) vehicles (gvw ≤ 7.5t) grew strongly in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2020-21 (April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021) and by 41.9% to register 125,160 units, up from 88,189 units in same period of FY2019-20. Production of LCV goods carriers increased by 42.8% to 141,939 vehicles from 99,408 in the same quarter the year before, and exports grew by 53.1% to 11,503 (7,514).

Tractor sales grew by 55.5% during the fourth quarter in fiscal year 2020-21 (January to March) to register 8,413 units compared with 5,409 units in the same quarter of the previous year (FY2019-20). Tractor production increased by 72.5% overall from 4,970 units to 8,572 units and exports were also up by 24.2%.

Sales of medium and heavy rigid trucks (7.5t gvw and above) in India during the fourth quarter (January to March 2021) of fiscal year 2020-21 increased by 112.1% to register 66,330 units, up from 31,275 units in same quarter of the year, 2019-20. This recovery was also in contrast to the decrease in the same quarter last year, which saw the market collapse from the previous year’s final quarter period (Q4/2018-19) when 80,355 trucks were registered.

Sales of LCV goods carrier (trucks) vehicles (gvw ≤ 7.5t) saw sales decline by 11.5% in the fiscal year 2020-21 (April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021) to 395,783 units from 447,351 units in FY2019-20. This is the second year of decline from 564,409 unit sales two years ago; a difference of 170,000 units!

Total tractor sales in the fiscal year 2020-21 (April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021)  fell by 28.9% to register 13,880 units compared with 19,516 units in the previous year (FY2019-20). Since two years ago this means the market has shrunk by 72% from when sales had registered 70,989 tractor units.

Domestic sales of medium- and heavy-duty rigid trucks fell by 15.41% to 139,486 units in FY2020 from 164,896 units in the financial year 2019-20. While this appears not to be a major fall if the registrations last year are compared with two years ago, when 280,139 units were registered, this is a halving of the market in two years.

Pune-based SCDE Solutions Pvt Ltd (Safe Cams Digital Eye Solutions) has launched a Driver Status Monitoring (DSM) system-based camera. The DSM functionality has been made available in three camera devices being sold by Safe Cams – SC 200 AI, SC DS02 and SC 400. While SC200 AI and SC400 models can be configured without a DSM camera, the SC DS02 has been designed exclusively as a ‘DSM-only’ camera.