The majority of shareholders of SAF-Holland SA last month voted in favour of changing the legal status of the truck and trailer components supplier to SAF-Holland SE, which stands for Societas Europaea and with the future registered office being in Bessenbach – where the company’s main manufacturing and operational headquarters already exist.

An EU-funded project to build and trial a hydrogen-powered truck, has started operations in the Netherlands.

The Philippine market for medium and heavy-duty commercial vehicles over 5 tons gvw is estimated to have declined by over 26% to 2,889 units in the first quarter of 2020 from already weak year-earlier sales of 3,930 units. Sales in March plunged as exports, investment and domestic business activity dropped sharply due to the COVID19 coronavirus pandemic.

The Russian market for trucks with gross vehicle weights of over 5 tons (>5t gvw) has contracted by 2.8% in the first quarter of 2020 (Q1/20) compared with the same period last year, according to statistics kept by LLC Avtostat Info.

In the first quarter of 2020, Russia registered 22,342 new light commercial vehicles, which was fractionally up (+0.6%) on the same period last year, according to LLC Avtostat Info.

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).

The Ford Trucks F-MAX tractor, developed and manufactured in Turkey by Ford Otosan and which won International Truck of the Year 2019 and also Truck of the Year Russia 2019, this month celebrates its first assembly anniversary year at Avtotor Holdings LLC.

Gearing up for increased future demand of its ultra-high energy batteries, Akasol AG in the last three months has announced several major investments to automate battery production at its two factories in Europe and in the USA.

Production capacity of the R6 in-line six-cylinder engine range of JSC Kamaz at its headquarters and main manufacturing base in Naberezhnye is to be increased from 12,000 units annually to 30,000, the heavy truck builder has announced.

Jacobs Vehicle Systems has announced it is to extend the supply compression release engine brakes across the full range of Yuchai K Series heavy duty engines made by Guangxi Yuchai Machinery Co Ltd, one of China’s largest engine makers based in Yulin.

Heavy-duty truck builder, Scania AB, has chosen Webasto Group to be its charging partner across Europe, to provide charging stations when selling its new plug-in hybrid truck.

Schmitz Cargobull AG, via its UK-owned subsidiary Schmitz Cargobull (UK) Ltd, plans to extend assembly of its rigid truck bodies in the UK through its national Service Partner network.