TraXon unit number 1,000,000 rolled off the production line at the company’s headquarters on 11 September, only eighteen months after ZF surpassed 500,000 units.

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.

MCV will produce the buses under licence at its facility in Egypt, employing chassis supplied from Volvo’s factories in Sweden.

The funding is to come from the Department for Transport (DfT), National Highways, HS2 Ltd, Network Rail and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

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.

130 units of the ‘Urbino 12 hydrogen’ line will be delivered over the next few years, the vast majority of which (127) will be delivered to the Metropolitan City of Bologna.

Following the framework sale of the e-Jest electric shuttle bus in the right-hand drive market in Japan earlier this year - Karsan is now exploring entry into the UK market with first deliveries planned for 2024.

The company is set to deliver a BrightDrop Zevo 400 and BrightDrop Zevo 600 electric van by Q4 this year. The vehicles will be produced at GM’s CAMI Assembly plant in Ontario, Canada.

Speaking with Deniz Cetin, Chief Commercial Officer at Karsan Automotive & Board Member at Group Companies at Cenex (2023), T&BB was informed that Karsan has bid on autonomous electric bus contracts (tenders) in Spain, Israel, Qatar and Canada. Deniz confirmed that Karsan recently delivered an autonomous bus to Istanbul which comes off the back of two successful autonomous bus trials in Norway and the USA.

In May 2023, Sono Motors announced that it had filed for a protective shield proceeding with the Munich Local Court when the business became insolvent.

Higer completed the delivery of 780 Higer Buses worth USD55m to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under the “Belt and Road Initiative”, signifying the largest ever bus export from China to Saudi Arabia.

About the retrofit of the H2 ICE engine, Lord Bamford, JCB Chairman, said: “We have retrofitted this vehicle with a JCB hydrogen engine to demonstrate how simple it will be to convert existing vans and to show that it is not only construction and agricultural machines that can be powered by hydrogen. While converting vans will not be for JCB to do, it does prove there is something else other than batteries that can work very effectively.”