Allison Transmission Europe has introduced two new versions of its xFE fully automatic transmission for use in medium-duty trucks in the EMEA region.

Mercedes-Benz, through MFTB Taiwan, launched a touring coach for the Taiwanese market built on the OC500 RF Euro VI-compliant chassis in April this year, fitted with the 12-litre Mercedes-Benz OM 470 diesel engine.

Mitsubishi Fuso has made some important improvements to its Canter light-duty truck for compliance with Japanese regulations to be introduced in September 2021.

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 large buses and coaches (>7.5t gvw) in the fiscal year 2020-21 (April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021) decreased sharply by 81.70% to 7,322 units from 40,016 units registered in the previous same fiscal year (2019-20).

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.

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.

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!

Sales of light-duty passenger vehicles (7.5 tons and below) fell by 73.6% in the fiscal year 2020-21 (April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021) to 12,078 from 45,814 units in the previous fiscal year and from 52,170 units two years ago. Exports also fell dramatically by 61.8% to 1,641 units in 2021. Production experienced a decrease in output of 65.8% to 15,475 year-on-year from 45,291, and from over 55,000 in 2018-19.

India - Sales of light-duty passenger vehicles (7.5 tons and below) in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2020-21 (April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021) fell by 54.3% to 4,652 units from 10,170 in the same quarter of FY2019-20.  Exports fell by 37.2%  to 733 (1,168) and production fell sharply by 50.2% to 5,688 (11,429).

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.

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%.