Mercedes-Benz AG of Stuttgart, Germany has announced the next generation eSprinter van is to be built, starting from the second half of 2023, at three of the company’s global locations in North Charleston, South Carolina, USA, and in Düsseldorf and Ludwigsfelde, Germany.

Quantron AG of Augsburg, Germany, a producer of electric commercial vehicles recently announced two weeks of successful trials of its Q-Econic electric refuse truck with the city of Ulm waste disposal company, EBU.

Volvo’s Class 8 VNL long haul heavy-duty tractor truck is celebrating over a quarter century of production at the company’s New River Valley plant in Virginia, USA, where it has been assembled since its launch in 1996.

A Volvo Group subsidiary, Volvo Autonomous Solutions based in Gothenburg, Sweden, has entered a strategic partnership with start-up software company, Aurora Innovations Inc of Mountain View, California, United States to develop jointly global autonomous transport solutions at scale.

The Peruvian market ended the first quarter of 2021 with the sale of 4,401 commercial vehicles, an increase of 42.1% compared with 3,098 units in the first three months of 2020. This was the best first quarter result in seven years, since 2014, when 5,382 units were sold.

In April 2021, Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus Ltda of Resende, Rio de Janeiro announced it would be starting series production of the e-Delivery within the first semester and that it will go on sale in the second half of the year through its main concessionaires across the country.

Announcing a substantial increase in truck sales in Chile during the first quarter of 2021 of 45.8% to register 344 units (236), Scania Chile SA, headquartered in Santiago de Chile, said this performance had further consolidated its market position of second in the country.

Scania Latin America Ltda of São Bernardo do Campo, SP, has won an order for 200, Scania RH500 and RH540 extra-heavy-duty tractor units from Grupo G10 Ltda of Maringa in the State of Paraná, representing an investment of more than BRA100m (USD17.5m).

DAF Caminhões Brasil Ltda has started production of its latest version of the CF tractor range at its plant in Ponta Grossa, Paraná State, Brazil for both the on- and off-highway markets, as well as a CF rigid truck model, marking its entry into the rigid truck distribution segment in Brazil for the first time.

DAF Caminhões Brasil has launched a new off-road tractor unit in its new CF range, the chassis has been fully reinforced to handle severe off-road applications such as sugarcane and timber operations and offering gross train weights of up to 125 tons.

Iveco América do Sul Ltda at the start of this year announced it was hiring 478 temporary workers for its industrial complex in Sete Lagoas, Minas Gerais to expand commercial vehicle production to meet demand. This is in addition to 272 new employees hired in October last year.

Volvo Trucks Latin America Ltda said it had hired more than 400 temporary employees in January taking its employee numbers to 3,800, slightly more than the 3,700 employed in January 2020, prior to the pandemic.