The project aims to build a commercially competitive 44-tonne proof of concept Hydrogen Fuel Cell (HFC) heavy goods tractor unit. With funding from the UK’s Advanced Propulsion Centre, project ICEBreaker is set to begin next month (October 2023) with the aim of developing lighter, more efficient hydrogen fuel cell Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) with a lower cost of ownership.

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

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.

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.

The Ghent factory is assembling battery electric versions of the heavy-duty FH, FM, and FMX ranges on the same production line as the diesel and natural gas ones.

The vehicle shown was a 26-tonne ‘E-Tech D Wide’ 6x2 chassis with inward folding "bus-style" doors and low step height.

A multi-year deal signed earlier this year with waste management company, Biffa, ensures that an initial order of up to ten 26-tonne Mercedes-Benz Econic diesel-powered refuse vehicles will be repowered with Lunaz electric drivetrains, saving an estimated 210 tonnes of carbon a year.

A European customer has now taken five vehicles, and Quantron’s CEO, Michael Perschke, said its orders amount to up to 100 units.

Tractor sales in the first quarter (April to June) of 2023-24 increased by 51.9% to register 14,479 units compared with 9,535 units in the same quarter of the previous year (FY 2022-23).

The FH – standing for ‘Forward control High entry’ – was launched to replace the ‘F’ series of trucks which had been in production for over 15 years.

The vehicle presented at the show was a first demonstrator, but Schaeffler and VDL have plans to produce more, with the aim of commencing customer pilots in Germany in 2025.

Sales of medium and heavy-duty rigid trucks (7.5t gvw and above) in India experienced a contraction of 10.4% in Q1 (April-June) of FY2023-24 to register 52,356 units, down from 58,443 units in same quarter of the year 2022-23.