The market for commercial vehicles over 2 tons gvw in South Korea plunged by almost 27% year-on-year to 47,993 units in the first quarter of 2024 compared with strong year-earlier volumes.

The Thai commercial vehicle market over 2 tons gvw plunged by 42% to 54,398 units in the first quarter of 2024 from an already weak 93,107 units a year earlier.

Hyundai has announced it is expanding its hydrogen truck business in the US through a partnership with California-based non-profit organisation Centre for Transportation and the Environment (CTE).

The market for commercial vehicles over 2 tons gvw in East Asia’s seven main markets, excluding China, continued to deteriorate in the first quarter of 2024 - with sales falling sharply by more than 28% year-on-year to 268,053 units.

The Japanese market for commercial vehicles over 2 tons gvw fell by more than 24% to 82,222 units in the first quarter of 2024 after rebounding by 12% to 108,502 units in the same period of last year.

Initially set to be released in the U.S. market, the class 8 battery-electric RC8 truck is set to go into series production in Q4 2024, at Hexagon’s new 200,000-square-foot facility in Dallas, Texas. Tern trucks will be available through the Hino dealer network across the U.S.

Hexagon Purus is set to supply hydrogen storage and battery packs to Toyota Motor North America for the series production of its heavy-duty fuel cell powertrains. These HFC powertrains will be manufactured at the Toyota facility in Georgetown, Kentucky.

Orders can now be placed for Scania’s 40-tonne tipper truck, installed with the company’s own self-driving software which it has tested over six years in mining operations in Australia.

After the 2022 edition of ‘Busworld Southeast Asia’, I argued that the divergent priorities of the Indonesian government and the country’s longstanding bus and coach manufacturers were on full display at the show. At this year’s show, held between 15-17 May at the Jakarta International Expo, the domestic manufacturers doubled the number of electric models on show – that is to say, they displayed a total of two electric buses instead of one. The impression I got two years ago of divergent, even opposing, ideas about the future of the market in Indonesia was confirmed by the latest show, which was much larger in scale and well attended following the final removal of all pandemic-era restrictions.

The ST1 (Service Type 1) battery-powered LCV platform is the name of a new, purpose-designed platform of battery-powered light commercial vehicles from Hyundai for the local delivery market segment.

The plan is to start mass production of a battery-powered version of the Hilux pickup truck for Thailand and for export.

Tata Daewoo has resumed exports to Algeria under the Daewoo brand after the country’s Ministry of Trade began easing restrictions on vehicle imports last year.