CEO Klaus Rinnerberger will be CEO until the end of 2027. Additionally, the contract of COO Ingo Spengler was extended until the same date, while CFO Dr. Harald Nippel will continue his role until April 2026.

Sono Motors’ ‘Solar Bus Kit’ is a solar panel array which fits onto the roof of a city bus in order to provide auxiliary power, reducing fuel consumption in a combustion engine vehicle or increasing the energy capacity of an electric one.

Sunswap will use the money to support the further development, production, and commercialisation of its technology: solar panels mounted on the roof of a reefer trailer to supply energy to the refrigeration unit, thus reducing the fuel consumption of the whole truck-trailer combination.

Chai will be at the centre as the company looks to scale up production at its Gigafactory in Voderady, Slovakia, after securing significant funding from the Slovakian Development Bank earlier this year.

The company will showcase a range of new products under the theme "Innovating transportation from road to cloud". This year's focus includes digitalisation, sustainability and autonomous driving technologies for commercial vehicles.

The company has been testing a hydrogen-powered engine in a Mercedes-Benz Unimog with the long-term aim of developing, at scale, hydrogen combustion engines for heavy-duty and specialised vehicles.

In our last feature on Maxion Wheels in Turkey, I made only brief mention of a very recent and significant development at the Manisa site: the construction of a new plant for forged aluminium wheels, designed not for light vehicles but for heavy trucks and other commercial vehicles. The decision to enter the CV aluminium wheel market was announced by Maxion Wheels at the last IAA Transportation in 2022; the news is important enough that it deserves an article to itself, and so I interviewed Matt Brest ahead of IAA Transportation 2024, where Maxion Wheels will show its forged aluminium wheels to the public for the first time.

The 1,826-unit figure recorded for Q2 2024 massively outperformed the same period of the year before, when SMMT reported Britain’s best Q2 registrations since 2019 (1,129).

The acquisition is expected to leverage the expertise of the Roberto Nuti Group to enhance SI Airsprings product offerings as well as strengthen its global market position.

The company will present “Lamilux Sunsation”, a gelcoat technology with 20 times better UV resistance than the gelcoats currently available on the market, according to the company. This product took years to develop and the technology, which is patented, was developed in-house in Germany.

11,469 new HGVs were registered in Q2 2024, only slightly more than the number recorded in the same period of 2023, according to statistics published by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.

The facility houses a diagnostics lab and tear-down area with staff responsible for training service engineers on product maintenance and repair, remote diagnostics and engine optimisation.