News: October 2008

The second Truck and Bus Forum is planned in Gothenburg on 8-9 December. The first, at the same time last year in Lyon attracted 400 delegates from more than 15 countries. The organizers say top people from world leading truck makers at the event include Leif Johansson, boss of AB Volvo, Leif Östling, boss of Scania AB, Andreas Renschler, head of Daimler AG's truck division and Håkan Samuelsson, boss at MAN. Forum director Emmanuel Piegay says subjects for discussion include 'What will fuel costs be tomorrow?' and 'Energy cost as the key driver for tomorrow's transport' and promise lively debate.

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The European Union and the European business world, including some car manufacturers and oil groups, are to inject a billion Euros over the next six years into the research and development of new energy technologies, and in particular hydrogen-based fuel cells. The objective of this investment is to bring these technologies to the market more quickly, ideally between 2010 and 2020.

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The Lithuanian Truck of the Year 2009 was unveiled at last week's Transport Leaders ceremony in Vilnius. The new Volvo FH was awarded by the jury as Truck of the Year 2009. This FH title was reinforced with Truck of the Year by People choice trophy and Volvo truck got the award for the second consecutive year.

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Daimler Trucks North America has announced the creation of a huge plan whose aim is to adjust and strengthen the activities of the company in response to the decrease in market demand and to the changed economic situation. It has been revealed that the company is to concentrate on 2 brands (Freightliner and Western Star) and to cease the activities of Sterling Trucks from March 2009. The plan also sets out the consolidation of production units with, amongst others, the closure of the sterling factory in St. Thomas (Ontario) in 2009 and the Portland factory in Oregon in 2010. The workforce is also to be reduced by 1200 persons. These measures should free up some 900 million dollars by 2011. It should be noted that production from the new factory in Saltillo in Mexico will start in February 2009 as scheduled. This factory will produce the new Freightliner Cascadia.

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The transport ministers of the German ‘Länder’ and the federal minister Wolfgang Tiefensee have come to an agreement on the increase in tariffs for the Maut toll. These tariffs will increase globally by 13.5 to 16 cents but tariffs for Euro-3 vehicles will remain lower than that desired at a federal level, for two years. The wishes of the ‘Länder’ were therefore heeded.

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