Electric van and bus manufacturing start up, Arrival Ltd of London, UK, on 24 March 2021 completed its previously announced merger with CIIG Merger Corporation of New York, NY, USA to become a publicly listed company trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market with its ordinary shares and warrants listed under the new ticker symbols ‘ARVL’ and ‘ARVLW’, respectively.

Hino Motors Ltd of Hino-shi and ‘electric skateboard chassis builder,’ REE Automotive (REE*) of Tel Aviv, Israel, have signed a strategic business alliance agreement to realise their shared vision of “providing new value to society through next-generation commercial mobility.”

Jost-Werke AG of Neu-Isenburg, Germany, a manufacturer and supplier of coupling components for trucks and trailers has been bought by investment fund management company, sold Edbro Ltd of Bolton, UK to Enact and its fund manager, Endless LLP of Leeds, UK for an undisclosed sum.

Hino Motors Ltd of Hino-shi from mid-2022 plans to release onto the Japanese market, the Hino Dutro Z EV – the company’s first full-scale electric vehicle which is designed for ‘last mile deliveries.’

DAF Truck NV of Eindhoven, The Netherlands – a Paccar Inc company - under the Paccar brand name, is to offer a full range of high-end solutions to charge the batteries of its new LF Electric and CF Electric trucks, as well as other electric commercial vehicles, including vans.

Chelmsford-based Tevva Motors Ltd, a developer of long-range zero emission trucks and Vattenfall Network Solutions of London, UK, a division of Sweden-based energy company, Vattenfall AB, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to co-operate over helping businesses switch to zero-emission vehicle fleets and reduce the overall carbon impact of their operations.  

Peterbilt Motors Company of Denton, Texas, part of Paccar Inc, has launched a new range of medium-duty trucks, Model 535 and Model 536, designed for the Class 5/6 non-CDL (non-commercial driver-licence) lease and rental markets.

Coinciding with the new medium-duty truck models for the Class 5&6 market segments,  Peterbilt Motors Company of Denton, Texas, part of Paccar Inc, has also  launched this new ‘medium’ truck design in the Class 7/8 market segments, under Model 537 and Model 548.

Peterbilt Motors Company, part of Paccar Inc, alongside its four new medium truck models, has launched the all-new Paccar TX-8 automatic transmission with updated Paccar PX engines.

Fuso Truck & Bus Australia of Huntingwood, NSW has launched Daimler Trucks’ series-produced Fuso eCanter in Australia.

Volvo Trucks North America Inc of Greenboro, North Carolina, in announcing the supply of a Volvo VNR Electric to Quality Custom Distribution - the first zero-emission, battery-electric truck to be deployed in QCD’s fleet of more than 700 vehicles – has also announced production of the Class 8 electric truck slated to begin in early 2021 at the company’s New River Valley manufacturing plant in Dublin, Virginia.

A project researching an aerodynamically optimised articulated tractor-trailer combination initiated by Dutch international food producer, Vion NV of Boxtel, The Netherlands, started trials on German roads in mid-March with expectations of reducing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions by 8%.