The rebranding is part of the company's plan to completely reinvent itself going from light duty truck builder to producer of EV charging equipment.

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).

Beginning his new role on November 1, 2023, signals the Chinese company’s ambition to grow throughout Europe, by consolidating European sales on a local level. It is worth noting that CATL began production of battery cells in Germany earlier this year at its factory in Arnstadt, Thuringia.

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.

With production expected to be completed by the end of 2026, the USD 550 million investment is expected to create 380 jobs and support the increased production of CV tyres, all equipped with RFID (radio frequency identification) tags that enable more efficient asset management, including retreading.