January 18, 2024
The Belgian federal government is poised to decide on a proposal from Minister of Finance Vincent Van Peteghem (CD&V) to give owners of company cars on diesel and gasoline some tax relief. The rabbit in van Petegehem’s hat adds the more modern WLTP data to the NEDC measurements, dampening the shock jump. Owners of company […]
January 18, 2024
With the immediate appointment of Mark Zwaaneveld (62) as co-CEO, Belgian bus and touring car builder Van Hool is getting a shrewd crisis manager in-house to put the company back on track after four years of doom. Zwaaneveld will focus on a restructuring plan, while Filip Van Hool (59), the founding family’s third generation, runs […]
January 18, 2024
The administrative court of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany has once again declared that the update for diesel engines Volkswagen proposed in the aftermath of dieselgate is also illegal. The homologation by the official German car agency Kraftfahrt Bundesamt (KBA) is invalid. The German NGO Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) has presented the update to the court and welcomes […]
January 17, 2024
German car rental company Sixt is to buy up to 250 000 cars for its rental fleets in Europe and North America from Stellantis, the group behind brands such as Peugeot, Citroën, Opel, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Fiat, and Jeep. The order involves several billion euros, although both companies are not naming precise amounts. The move […]
January 17, 2024
The French micro-mobility specialist Ligier will import K-Ryole’s electric transport solutions to Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. The purpose is to offer even more zero-emission micro-mobility solutions for building and logistics. K-Ryole is a French manufacturer of innovative, electrically supported bike trailers and trolleys, especially suited for last-mile delivery. The bike trailers are mainly used […]
January 17, 2024
BYD expands its Ocean line-up with the Sea Lion 07, a mid-size electric Coupé-SUV that should compete with the Tesla Model Y. Ahead of its official launch in the first half of 2024, China’s MIIT leaks the new model’s technical specifications. The Sea Lion 07 will have three powertrain variants, including two single-motor versions and […]
January 17, 2024
Swedish battery maker Northvolt will get 4,6 billion euros to expand its large battery factory in Sweden and the Revolt Ett recycling plant next door. It is the largest green loan given to a company so far in Europe, according to the European Investment Bank (EIB), which is issuing the loan with 23 commercial banks […]
January 17, 2024
BYD (Build Your Dreams) has commissioned the first of what will probably become a fleet of four giant ro-ro ferries with up to 7 000 cars to ‘fuel’ its expansion into Europe. According to Chinese press agency Xinhua, the BYD Explorer 1 has set sail from China’s southern city of Shenzhen to the Dutch port […]
January 17, 2024
From January 17 to 21, Brussels will host the Brussels Auto Show (BAS) at the Heysel. This new formula from Dutch organizer 402 Automotive fills the gap left by the canceled Brussels Motor Show and focuses on car enthusiasts rather than the general public. On the halls’ 60 000 square meters, visitors will have chances […]
January 17, 2024
At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, California-based AC Future presented the ETH, a fully electric RV concept designed by Pininfarina with expandable walls that convert it into a luxurious living area and a mobile workspace. The AC Future eTH stands for ‘Electric Transformer House’, which is a great way to describe the […]
January 17, 2024
Wednesday is the moment of truth for 2 000 employees of Dutch contract builder VDL Nedcar in Born, as the company has summoned everybody to show up and get to know the final end day of their work. Only 474 will escape the hatchet. The employees are informed department by department and can get answers […]
January 17, 2024
After opening its first station in Denmark in Q4 2023, Dutch fast-charger provider Fastned is now expanding to Spain, where it won a first tender for seven stations along highways. The first Spanish station will be built in Casarrubuelos (Madrid) along the A42 to Toledo, featuring eight 400 kW chargers. The goal is to build […]
January 16, 2024
Maserati gains a new showroom in Belgium with Maserati Center Antwerp, a new concept store built in collaboration with D’Ieteren. The Belgian VW importer is expanding its business into the luxury segment, including creating dealerships of brands outside the Volkswagen Group portfolio. D’Ieteren may be best known as the Belgian importer of VW Group brands […]
January 16, 2024
The future Lancia Ypsilon has been photographed in all its glory and without camouflage during a promotional photoshoot in Italy. The new model will surely come with a fully electric variant and will be launched later this year. The first new Lancia for over a decade showcases a new brand design inspired by the recent […]
January 16, 2024
BMW chief financial officer Walter Mertl said in a recent media roundtable BMW has passed the tipping point for combustion engine vehicle sales and now generates most sales growth from electric cars. “The tipping point for the combustion engine is already there,” the CFO said, adding that, in his view, it had been passed last […]
January 16, 2024
Lufthansa Group plans to hire around 13 000 new employees this year. These include pilots, cabin crew, technicians, and IT specialists, according to the German airline group, which also has airlines Eurowings, Brussels Airlines, Swiss, and Austrian Airlines. According to Aviation24, at least 380 of them will be recruited for Brussels Airlines. Lufthansa is looking […]
January 16, 2024
Gas station operator Q8 and energy company Storm will build a network of up to 200 fast charging stations in Belgium – about half with a shop or restaurant. That is what both companies announced on Monday. They call it “a unique partnership”. The project represents an investment of up to 250 million euros. Both […]
January 15, 2024
The punctuality of Belgian public railway company NMBS/SNCB’s trains fell to the lowest level in five years last year. More than 46 000 trains were also canceled, a record. “This is not what passengers are entitled to,” the rail operator and NMBS/SNCB responded. Specifically, 87,5% of trains arrived at their final destination or in Brussels […]
January 15, 2024
Last year, the Brussels region fined a record number of motorists who entered the Brussels low-emission zone (LEZ) with a car that was too polluting. Almost 30 000 drivers – 29 643 to be precise – were fined, an increase of almost 60% compared to 2022. In 2020, 12 321 fines were issued; in 2021, […]
January 15, 2024
The Dutch energy storage company Giga Storage plans to develop Europe’s largest battery park in Dilsen-Stokkem (Belgium). The 60 MW energy storage project will have a 2 400 MWh capacity. This means that the average energy consumption of 330 000 families can be stored here each day and fed back into the electricity grid. “In […]
January 15, 2024
Volkswagen has published its Group-wide sales figures for the past year. According to the figures, the Volkswagen Group delivered 771 100 fully electric vehicles worldwide in 2023. Across all drive types, Volkswagen achieved total sales of 9,24 million vehicles in 2023, an increase of 21% compared to 2022. The 771 100 fully electric vehicles delivered […]
January 15, 2024
The share of company cars fell back last year for the first time. Though the success was still trending before 2023, the sharply rising cost of electrification and the dampened interest from younger staff are pulling the brakes on Belgium’s ‘wage on wheels’, according to HR company SD Worx. In a probe, SD Worx analyzed […]
January 15, 2024
Since Monday, production at the Ghent factory of Volvo Car has come to a standstill, as supplies got exhausted due to container ships having to choose an alternative 10-day longer route to avoid the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. Volvo hopes to be able to restart on Thursday. Earlier, Tesla told Reuters it would […]
January 15, 2024
Kia has shown its vision of the future of mobility at CES 2024 in Las Vegas, with a modular ‘Platform Beyond Vehicle’ (PBV) that takes another stab at creating a continuously customizable vehicle. But this is no simple fantasy: the first model, the Kia PV5, will enter mass production in 2025. Kia’s Platform Beyond Vehicle […]
January 15, 2024
After signing last year a contract with Qbuzz, a public transport operator in the Netherlands, to deliver 54 battery-electric buses of its latest type A battery-electric city bus, Belgian bus builder Van Hool may deliver another 112 before the end of this year. That’s a gift from the gods, as up to 65% of the […]
January 15, 2024
The French start-up company Tiamat Energy is planning a factory for sodium-ion battery cells with an annual capacity of 5 GWh in northern France and is receiving financial support from Stellantis, among others. Tiamat Energy is a sodium-ion cell developer spun off from the French National Research Centre CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique). […]
January 12, 2024
According to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), renewable energy production capacity has increased by 50% in the past year. The IEA says the increase is faster than ever in the last thirty years. Due to the rapid growth, there is a real chance that global capacity will triple by 2030. Last […]
January 12, 2024
Mullen Automotive, a US-based manufacturer mostly specialized in converting Chinese EVs for its domestic market, has brought a self-developed high-performance electric crossover to CES 2024 in Las Vegas. The Mullen Five RS promises over 1 000 horsepower, 0-100 km/hour in less than two seconds, and a 2025 launch. Those figures sound promising, but Mullen Automotive’s […]
January 12, 2024
Rental company Hertz announced that it will ditch approximately 20 000 electric cars in the US, equivalent to about one-third of its global EV fleet. Hertz names unsatisfying customer demand as one of the reasons and will reinvest in combustion-engined cars. The news smudges the company’s leading move two years ago, ordering 100 000 zero-emission […]
January 12, 2024
Belgium has always been a ‘car-loving country’, and although the pandemic and the energy crisis made Belgians lose the appetite to buy a new (or used) car, 32% of them are getting that itch again. That’s double the percentage of 2022, and 12% more than last year, according to a Traxio survey. But it won’t […]
January 12, 2024
After a brief flirtation with warmer months, the North American International Auto Show NAIAS), also known as the Detroit Auto Show, is returning to its original January exhibition month. Rod Alberts, executive director of the Detroit Auto Dealers Association (DADA), told the Detroit Free Press on Thursday that the 2025 Detroit auto show will begin […]
January 12, 2024
A new legal framework gives Belgian police a legal basis to deploy bicycles with GPS trackers from now on. Previous limited experiments by some police zones with lure bikes were successful but time-consuming and required the intervention of the magistracy as the method could otherwise be considered a provocation. The city of Ghent, in particular, […]
January 12, 2024
Harald Seidel, President of DAF Trucks, takes over from Martin Lundstedt (Volvo Group) as the new chairman of the Commercial Vehicle Board of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) for 2024. He will be in charge of defending the truckmakers’ interests in Europe. The ACEA unites the European vehicle manufacturers, including commercial vehicles. Luca de […]
January 12, 2024
Since September last year, Wolfgang Bremm von Kleinsorgen (52) has been CEO of Mercedes-Benz Benelux. He took the alternative Mercedes motor show event ‘Defining Class Star Days’ in his own headquarters as an opportunity to talk to the outside world for the first time. The new CEO originates from Aachen, Germany, and knows Belgium fairly […]
January 11, 2024
The students of the Belgian Solar Team, who became world champion in October 2023, are preparing for the SASOL Solar Challenge in South Africa, which will start within eight months. This competition is considered the most extreme in the world. The engineering students from KU Leuven will travel more than 4 000 kilometers over eight […]
January 11, 2024
By the end of 2027, BMW will no longer manufacture combustion-engined models in the plant in Munich near its headquarters. The premium automaker introduces the production of the revolutionary New Class in 2026 and will gradually fade out the ICE version as the line will be reserved exclusively for the electric range. BMW broke the […]
January 11, 2024
At CES 2024 in Las Vegas, Vietnamese electric carmaker VinFast revealed two new models. The VF Wild, a mid-size zero-emission pickup truck, wants to challenge the F-150 Lightning and Rivian RR1T, while the small VF3 takes on a more global role as an affordable two-door ‘mini-eSUV’. Indeed, the VF Wild is the more noticeable of […]
January 11, 2024
The German shared e-scooter operator TIER and the Dutch-French micro-mobility company Dott have signed a preliminary agreement to merge the two companies to form Europe’s leading micro-mobility operator. Both companies reported this in a press release. The joint entity will continue to operate under the Dott and TIER brands. The merger is expected to take […]
January 11, 2024
Honda has decided to start again from a blank sheet of paper for its next-generation electric vehicles. The 0-Series concept cars, the Saloon and Space-Hub, represent this new approach with a light and nimble design to bring back the joy of driving in the EV era. We should be able to discover the results in […]
January 11, 2024
Chinese BYD (Build Your Dreams) just unveiled on Weibo ‘out of the blue’ the new super sedan under its premium YangWang brand name, the U7, which is yet another challenger for German premium brands like Porsche, Mercedes, and BMW. Previously, only some European patent images of the sedan appeared, identified as ‘U6’. But apart from […]
January 10, 2024
London still has the world’s slowest city center for motorists. That’s according to the new TomTom index. This puts the British capital at the top of the Dutch location technology company’s rankings for the second year. London scores so ‘high’ because of its widespread speed limits of 20 mph, or 32 km/hour. TomTom based its […]
January 10, 2024
South Korean carmaker Hyundai unveiled in Vegas, at the start of the Consumer Electronics Show 2024, the second S-A2 concept of its four-passenger ‘flying taxi,’ an electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicle. The real ‘take-off’ in the market will not be before 2028, as this one is on static display at the parking lot […]
January 10, 2024
The BMW Group sold a total of 376 183 all-electric vehicles in 2023. That is 74,4% more than in 2022, with the BMW core brand achieving even stronger growth thanks to several new models, while Mini only saw a slight increase. In 2022, the BMW Group sold 215 755 fully electric vehicles of the BMW […]
January 10, 2024
In 2023, less than half of company cars (43,7%) in Belgium ran on diesel (57,8% in 2022), and a record number of employees (40%) commuted to work by bicycle – three years ago, it was only 33%. These are some findings from the latest mobility barometer from human resources service provider Acerta presented on Wednesday, […]
January 10, 2024
Volvo has delivered – at the last moment in December 2023 – as promised, the first Chinese-built EX30 EVs to customers in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal. The EX3 is Volvo’s smallest fully electric SUV to date, built on the same SEA platform as its siblings within the Geely Group, the Zeekr X and […]
January 10, 2024
As reported by the German car magazine Auto, Motor und Sport, customers eager to get their hands on the ID.2 will have to exercise patience, waiting almost two and a half years before significant deliveries commence.At the CES in Las Vegas, VW managers now denied the delay. Currently, Volkswagen’s cheapest battery-powered model costs roughly 40 […]
January 09, 2024
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), operated by the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the EU Commission, monitored several key climate indicators throughout the year 2023 and reported record conditions. Such as the warmest month on record and daily global temperature averages that briefly exceeded pre-industrial levels by more than 2°C. […]
January 09, 2024
Yanfeng, a Shanghai-based multinational automotive supplier specializing in interior components, has presented its vision of the EV interior of the future at CES 2024 in Las Vegas. The Smart Cabin Seat integrates most controls, entertainment, safety systems, and even climate control directly into the seat. Yanfeng claims this Smart Cabin Seat results from multiple studies […]
January 09, 2024
Germany has been given the green light by the European Commission to allocate 902 million euros in subsidies to a battery plant by Sweden’s Northvolt in Heide, in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. The plant in northern Germany, positioned to produce the cleanest batteries for EVs in continental Europe with a capacity of up to 60 […]
January 09, 2024
The in-car digital experience of both the present day and the future is the dominant theme of the BMW Group’s presence at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2024 in Las Vegas, U.S. New infotainment products for the current BMW model portfolio will be shown at the event. At the same time, the BMW Group is […]
January 09, 2024
While most Belgian car drivers generally stick devotedly loyal to trusted European or to lesser extent Japanese quality, and up to 80% don’t trust Chinese cars, 52% of the professional lease drivers start admitting these ‘Dragons on Wheels’, EVs with an attractive price and lots of high techs, could be a good deal. The distrust […]
January 09, 2024
The Brussels government has inaugurated a new P+R car park on the Heysel plateau, suitable for around 100 parking spaces. The car park and the ninth Park and Ride in the Brussels Region should make commuting to Brussels smoother. “With P+R Heysel, we now provide parking infrastructure at all major approach roads, with smooth connections […]
January 09, 2024
In addition to the loss of time, the extra fuel consumption, and the additional CO2 emissions, traffic jams in Belgium cost more than 5 billion euros last year, or 4% more than in 2022. Figures from the Flemish Traffic Center show there have never been more traffic jams than in 2023. October and November had […]
January 09, 2024
Toyota Belgium, one of the market leaders in the segment of individual buyers with its Yaris model, ordered a survey showing great uncertainty reigning in this market segment about when and what to buy. Toyota Belgium asked marketing research specialist Ipsos to investigate the buying intentions of individual car buyers. 1 000 respondents (only potential […]
January 09, 2024
CO2 emissions from Germany, Europe’s leading industrial nation and the largest energy consumer in Europe, have reached their lowest level in around 70 years, thanks to a stronger-than-expected decline in the use of coal. Greenhouse gas emissions reached 673 million tons of CO2 last year, “the lowest level since the 1950s” and significantly down from […]
January 08, 2024
Nikola Motor’s 2023 has been tumultuous, to say the least. But the American zero-emission semi-truck manufacturer has closed out the year with its first hydrogen fuel cell electric trucks being delivered to customers. The outlook for 2024 should follow soon. Nikola’s 2023 year in review was not an easy one. The troubles started (or continued, […]
January 08, 2024
According to market research ordered by Mobia, the Belgian car buyer will be more impacted by a premium to buy an electric car than by the eventual expansion of LEZ zones. Mobia, the overarching association of car sector federations Febiac (new car market), Traxio (second-hand car market), and Renta (car leasing and renting), has done […]
January 08, 2024
The storm over Flemish public transport company De Lijn’s new transport scheme has not died. In an interview with the newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws, top woman Ann Schoubs says that De Lijn wants to raise ticket prices if the Flemish government does not release an extra 100 million euros annually. However, in principle, the Flemish […]
January 08, 2024
China’s top-selling automaker has started constructing a factory for sodium-ion batteries in the Xuzhou region. The plant will be scaled up to produce 30 GWh annually, with packs primarily intended for use in scooters, motorcycles, and smaller vehicles. The factory collaborates with the Chinese tricycle brand HuaiHai through BYD’s subsidiary Findreams Battery. Both partners are […]
January 08, 2024
Volvo Cars set a new global sales record as the company reported full-year sales of 708 716 cars during 2023, an increase of 15% compared to the entire year of 2022. Volvo Cars will also get a €420 million loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to develop a new electric car platform. Volvo Cars […]
