January 31, 2023
The number of toll kilometers driven in Belgium fell last year due to the war in Ukraine, so reports Viapass. This public body coordinates and organizes road pricing in Belgium. Still, revenues from tolls rose to 829,3 million euros in 2022, or a slight increase of 1,86%, but this is mainly due to the indexation […]
January 23, 2023
The project to run a self-driving electric shuttle bus at Brussels Airport has been called off. Nearly eight years after initial plans, the development of such a bus is proving too complex. The cancellation of the urban autonomous transport project in cooperation with about four Flemish cities is another setback for De Lijn in its […]
January 19, 2023
DAF has finished its Eindhoven compound’s new assembly line for electric trucks. The DAF XD and XF Electric presented at IAA 2022 will start rolling off the line this spring. Eventually, DAF hopes to produce several thousand electric trucks annually at the facility. DAF started building the Electric Truck Assembly back in the summer of […]
January 17, 2023
Minister Petra De Sutter (Groen) wants more parcels delivered by bicycle, she said during a company visit to Cargo Velo, the all-round urban courier service operational in Ghent, Antwerp, and Brussels. E-commerce is still booming, partly due to the corona crisis, but, unfortunately, most deliveries are still made by vans. However, according to experts, at […]
January 17, 2023
After Colruyt started experimenting with an Estonian delivery robot in November, French supermarket chain Carrefour is setting up a pilot in the business park Corporate Village in Zaventem near Brussels with a Turkish-branded autonomous robot. After the first test panel of twenty people, everybody in the Corporate Village will be able, starting next week, to […]
January 11, 2023
The intended merger between the Norwegian oil tanker shipping company under Cypriot flag, Frontline, and the Belgian sector peer Euronav is definitely off. Frontline pulls the plug, and the company does not give an official reason for abandoning. In reaction to the news that came like a bolt from the blue, Euronav management says that […]
January 10, 2023
Flanders launches a two-year pilot project allowing large bicycle trailers on public roads. Flemish Mobility Minister Lydia Peeters (Open Vld) hopes the experiment will contribute to the emission-free delivery of goods in city centers. Today, bicycle trailers may not be wider than one meter. However, during the pilot project, companies will be able to apply […]
January 10, 2023
An electric vehicle replacing one with a classic combustion engine (ICE) can spare a European company today on average €3 599 and 5 560 liters of fuel per year per vehicle. That represents a reduction of 15 tons of CO2 per vehicle, a new report based on telematics data from Webfleet shows. Webfleet is the […]
January 03, 2023
About a month after the first delivery event of the Tesla Semi, where it proved its 500-mile range, technical images have emerged of the long-haul electric truck revealing its battery location and more details about its weight. Tesla data miner @greentheonly on Twitter has shared a series of technical images of the Semi, revealing its […]
December 27, 2022
Scania and the transportation company Girteka from Lithuania announce an extensive new partnership. Girteka expects Scania to deliver up to 600 battery-electric trucks over the next four years. The companies will also collaborate on establishing charging infrastructure. The aim is to help reduce Girteka’s customers’ climate emissions at competitive costs. Girteka Logistics was founded in […]
December 23, 2022
Today, traffic will be able to cross the steel arch bridge over the Albert Channel in Viversel (Heusden-Zolder, Limburg, Belgium) again. That is what the Flemish Waterway (Vlaamse Waterweg) announced on Thursday. All bridges on the Channel had to be raised to allow inland shipping barges with four containers stacked on deck to pass under […]
December 22, 2022
The United States Postal Service (USPS) plans to deploy more than 66 000 electric vehicles by 2028. This will make it one of the largest electric vehicle fleets in the country. The company announced this on Tuesday. The vehicles purchased under this plan will replace the aging fleet of more than 220 000 vehicles, many […]
December 20, 2022
Trucks hauling Christmas presents to Europeans will emit an extra 10 300 tons of nitrogen oxides in December. According to a new study by the environmental organization Transport & Environment (T&E), heavy-duty vehicles transporting gifts all over Europe will produce 133% more nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions in December than in other months. Carbon emissions will […]
December 15, 2022
IKEA launched its first ‘low-carbon’ delivery operation to customers in Paris on Wednesday, with the help from the Belgian inland waterways specialist Blue Line Logistics. From now on, IKEA will use the Seine river and electric last-mile delivery vehicles to bring the furniture to the customers’ homes. “We are the first major distributor to serve […]
December 13, 2022
Volvo Trucks has expanded its electric range to include ‘rigid’ versions of the FH, FM, and FMX Electric: long-wheelbase versions for heavy box trucks, construction vehicles, or heavy distribution vehicles. These new trucks are primarily meant for urban use, but several battery and cab options are available. Volvo Trucks already produces lighter electric box trucks […]
December 08, 2022
The Chinese car and bus manufacturer BYD (Build Your Dreams) has expressed an interest in building its own car factories in Europe. This move would support its European expansion and overcome issues with getting the cars shipped to our shores in the long term. For now, China’s biggest EV maker will start by buying up […]
December 08, 2022
The city of Antwerp welcomes two new hydrogen-powered municipal waste collection vehicles. A first for Flanders. The vehicles were introduced on Wednesday, December 7th, at the DATS 24 hydrogen filling station in Wilrijk (Antwerp, Belgium). Hydrogen-powered vehicles are very quiet and clean. They’re equipped with an electric motor and a fuel cell and only emit […]
December 08, 2022
A business coalition of 45 companies is calling upon the EU Commission in an open letter to ensure all new freight trucks are zero-emission from 2035. With exceptions until 2040 for so-called ‘vocational trucks’ in niches like construction, mining, and timber industry having specific driving patterns. Among them are big names like Unilever, Henkel, PepsiCo, […]
December 07, 2022
Commercial Vehicle Charging Europe, the joint venture formed in July 2022 by the Volvo Group, Daimler Truck, and Traton Group, announced on Monday that it begins operating its fast-charging network for heavy trucks, buses, and coaches under the brand name Milence. Milence will initially focus on charging locations in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium, Spain, […]
December 05, 2022
Through its green subsidiary e-Line, German tuner Abt is starting to develop and produce a fuel cell driveline for vans. With daily ranges of 800 kilometers in express logistics not uncommon, it believes hydrogen is the preferred solution to battery-electric. “We see a sensible area of applications for the hydrogen fuel cell in long-distance logistics,” […]
December 01, 2022
With a picture of its driverless sci-fi-like electric truck or T-Pod, ‘shot or conveniently Photoshoped (?)’, in front of the iconic Antwerp Port Authority building, the Swedish Einride has announced its official launch in the Benelux. Einride will deliver six fully electric trucks to Belgian beer brewer Ab InBev, which pledges to replace all its […]
November 30, 2022
A locomotive of Belgian rail freight company Lineas carried out a demo run in the Netherlands fully autonomously on Tuesday. In the process, the locomotive also encountered obstacles on the rails, reports Alstom, which is developing the technology. The demonstration, which took place near Breda, concludes a series of tests that are part of a […]
November 30, 2022
With the first delivery of the Semi scheduled for this Thursday, December 1st, Elon Musk has announced on Twitter that Tesla’s long-haul truck has achieved a 500-mile (800 km) drive with a loaded trailer earlier this week. That would match the initial promises made by Musk back in 2017. As ever, Tesla CEO Elon Musk […]
November 25, 2022
Truck transport is massively polluting, and the emissions from transporting retail goods spike 94% during Black Friday week. However, there is a ready-made solution in the form of zero-emission trucks, the European environmental lobbying group Transport and Environment (T&E) says. Black Friday is notorious for peak consumerism and waste. Trucking retail goods is a dirty […]
November 25, 2022
On Thursday, Renault Trucks and Coca-Cola’s Belgian-Luxembourg branch Europacific Partners (CCEP) presented to the press the four first fully electric delivery trucks of a total fleet of thirty, which is to be commissioned in the next twelve months. The trucks with a range of 180 km to 400 km are charged overnight at Coca-Cola’s depot […]
November 22, 2022
Belgian retail giant Colruyt Group will have its own truck fleet running on electricity or hydrogen by 2030 and forces all its suppliers to deliver using zero-emission transport by 2035. CEO Jef Colruyt announced the latter at the opening of the group’s fourth DATS 24 hydrogen station near its distribution center in Ollignies. According to […]
November 16, 2022
The Toyota Parts Center Europe (TPCE) in Diest, the Japanese car giant Toyota’s largest distribution center outside its home country, expects to increase its activities by 25%, but without recruiting. This was stated by Andy Sinton, head of the parts supply chain at Toyota Motor Europe, on Tuesday during a press visit to mark the […]
November 09, 2022
Flemish Mobility Minister Lydia Peeters (Open Vld) has launched a study into the possible extension (and greening) of truck kilometer tax. The study has to analyze whether the existing truck kilometer tax should be extended to vans. Road transport on Belgian roads keeps on growing. According to Viapass, the interregional government that manages and coordinates […]
November 07, 2022
Transport economists of Antwerp University have succeeded for the first time in calculating the direct and social costs of traffic congestion. They developed a new tool and applied it on a 15-km-long traffic jam on the E19 highway in Antwerp. The result of their analysis was stunning: the cost amounted to more than 200 000 […]
November 07, 2022
Einride, the Swedish autonomous electric truck or ‘pod’ with the looks of a Star Wars Storm Trooper, has a second-generation, larger sibling: the ‘Gen 2’. It’s missing a driver’s cabin because it can handle most things on the road on its own, and a safety driver is sitting elsewhere behind computer screens overlooking the fleet, […]
October 27, 2022
Swedish truck builder Volvo Trucks started series production of the fully electric range of its popular heavy trucks, the Volvo FH, Volvo FM, and Volvo FMX, in the Tuve factory in Gothenburg, Sweden, and is prepping its Ghent (Belgium) factory to follow next year. Ghent will play a significant role in the group’s electrification, including […]
October 19, 2022
Belgium has the ambition to become a strategic hub for hydrogen in Europe. The new federal hydrogen strategy was launched on Tuesday. “We have to opt for hydrogen to avoid deindustrialization in our country,” said Prime Minister De Croo (Open Vld) at the presentation in the Antwerp Port House. Also present at the ceremony were […]
October 14, 2022
Last year, air pollution in Flanders increased again. According to the latest report of the Flemish Environmental Agency (Vlaamse MilieuMaatschappij, VMM), this is due to the revival of the economy, intensified traffic after corona, and probably the increased wood burning. The good news is that the concentration levels of polluting substances are lower than in […]
October 13, 2022
A new study by the Dutch technical research institute TNO about the possible uptake of zero–emission trucks to replace diesel in the coming years shows the battery-electric truck (BET) is the most cost effective (only) option from 2030. Fuel cell trucks will play a marginal role due to higher costs. By 2035, 99,8% of the […]
October 13, 2022
The rate per kilometer for trucks will be indexed by almost 10% (9,97%, to be precise) in Wallonia. The Walloon Region wants to increase it further for vehicles over 32 tons to the level of Flanders, i.e., a total increase of 22,85%. So reports the newspaper L’Echo. Rates in Wallonia will be indexed on 1 […]
October 10, 2022
US giant Amazon plans to more than double its fleet of electric vehicles making deliveries in Europe. The multinational technology company that focuses on e-commerce, among others, is planning an investment of more than 1 billion euros over five years, it announced on Monday, to work on decarbonizing its transport network in Europe. Amazon, the world’s largest […]
October 05, 2022
Battery electric trucks (BET) are expected to outperform classic diesel trucks with an internal combustion engine (ICE) from 2025 onward in the total cost of ownership (TCO). Fuel cell trucks (FCT) are to reach that point in 2030, while the cost advantage for the battery-electric truck will be 26 to 34%, a new study by […]
September 29, 2022
Daimler Truck has already received an order of 50 electric Mercedes-Benz eActros LongHaul from the German transport group Hegelmann, only a few days after revealing the near-production version of the long-distance electric truck at IAA Transportation in Hannover. It has been a productive show for Daimler Truck at IAA Transportation. After showing the near-production ‘concept […]
September 28, 2022
Premium carmaker BMW is partnering with German ‘historic’ combustion engine manufacturer Deutz AG in a ‘real-life operation’ project to test the feasibility of using heavy trucks with a six-cylinder combustion engine burning hydrogen instead of diesel in its logistics chain. The project is called HyCET (Hydrogen Combustion Engine Trucks) and is led by the BMW […]
September 27, 2022
Infrabel, the infrastructure branch of Belgian Rail, has ordered three battery electric measuring trains from Italian supplier Mermec. These so-called hybrid-electric trains can use a catenary system like regular trains but also access railway lines without it, pure on battery energy. The trains, totaling €42 million, will be delivered in 2024, 2026, and 2027. Measuring […]
September 26, 2022
Every year, bicycle use in Belgium avoids 1 294 premature deaths. At the same time, 137 717 tons of CO2 emissions are avoided because motorized traffic is replaced by bicycle trips. This is shown by a new study by road safety institute Vias. Moreover, also not insignificant when looking at the whole mobility cost picture: […]
September 22, 2022
ElectricBrands, best known for their funky XBUS, brought three new vehicles to IAA Transportation in Hannover. The XBUS S, Evetta Cargo, and NITO C+S are all compact electric vehicles designed for business use but with a friendly touch. The German start-up ElectricBrands first came into the spotlight with two compact electric vehicles based on iconic […]
September 22, 2022
Five industry giants, IKEA, Unilever, JSW Steel Limited, A.P. Moller – Maersk, and GeoPost/DPDgroup, commit themselves to have their heavy truck fleet (+7,5 tons) converted to zero-emission by 2040 in OECD markets, China and India. “Medium- and heavy-duty trucks, representing 4% of all vehicles on the road globally, account for 40% of all road transport […]
September 21, 2022
The Flemish Institute for Logistics (Vlaams Instituut voor Logistiek, VIL) and the Hasselt University joined forces to analyze what they could do about the acute shortage of truck drivers. Together, they launched the ‘Truck Driver 4.0’ project in search of solutions for the sector. The project’s starting point was the problematic shortage of truckers, despite […]
September 21, 2022
Maxus has expanded its European model range with three new electric models: the T90 pickup truck, the MIFA 9 minivan, and the 7,5-ton Electric Light Truck. With this expansion, the Chinese manufacturer enters both passenger and heavier commercial vehicle markets. Maxus, part of the Chinese conglomerate SAIC and imported by Astara Western Europe in Belgium, […]
September 21, 2022
Quantron has presented its QHM FCEV Heavy Truck at the IAA Transportation in Hannover, a MAN TGX-based hydrogen truck that boasts driving ranges of up to 1 500 km. That would make it the longest-range hydrogen truck on the market, with delivery expected in 2023. The Quantron QHM FCEV Heavy Truck uses two 120 kW […]
September 20, 2022
Bosch has developed an electric motor that can be used for vans and small trucks. By integrating the inverter into the motor housing, the powertrain becomes more compact but, above all, more efficient so that the autonomy of electric vehicles improves. The efficiency of electric vehicles is too often measured by the performance and storage […]
September 20, 2022
Iveco shows off its hydrogen and electric future for vans and trucks at the IAA Transportation in Hannover, thanks to partnerships with Hyundai and Nikola. Both the Daily light commercial vehicle and the Nikola Tre zero-emission truck will be available with either batteries or a hydrogen fuel cell. Back in March, Hyundai and Iveco announced […]
September 19, 2022
Daimler Truck has unveiled a ‘concept prototype version of the Mercedes-Benz eActros LongHaul at the IAA Transportation in Hannover. It previews the design of the long-haul electric truck, which will enter production in 2024 and boasts ranges of up to 800 km. The truck won the “2023 Truck Innovation Award” at the show, a prize […]
September 15, 2022
The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) has conducted a study on the viability of decarbonizing European road transport with hydrogen trucks by 2030. It appears that, even with dropping (green) hydrogen prices and more stringent CO2 reduction measures, subsidies will still be needed to bridge the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) gap between renewable […]
September 14, 2022
Volvo Trucks is starting series production of the fully electric range of its popular heavy trucks, the Volvo FH, Volvo FM, and Volvo FMX, able to handle a total weight of 44 tons Gross Combination Weight (GCW). The production will start in the Tuve factory in Gothenburg, Sweden, and next year at the factory in […]
September 13, 2022
DAF Trucks has started deliveries of its zero-emission, battery-electric LF truck, aimed at use in urban areas. The first one goes to Dutch logistics service provider Nabuurs, delivering beer to hospitality establishments in Groningen for the AB InBev brewing company. AB InBev wants to reach a net zero carbon footprint in its supply chain globally […]
September 09, 2022
By the middle of this decade, Mercedes-Benz Vans stated that all newly introduced vans would be electric only. And looking beyond that date, it will build large electric vans in Europe together with American startup Rivian. For this, both companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and will set up a 50/50 joint venture for […]
September 06, 2022
At the Mobility and the Future Mobility Summit in early September 2022, Mercedes is showing four improvements for its technology demonstrator ‘Sustaineer’ based on the Mercedes e-Sprinter. Those make the van more energy-efficient and ecological but also consider the driver’s comfort. The Sustaineer, which stands for Sustainable Pioneer, was first shown a year ago and […]
September 06, 2022
Belgium has to focus more on transport via rail and waterways. That is one of the conclusions of the latest Mobility Report 2022 from the Mobility Council (Mobiliteitsraad, MORA). “The transport sector surely has put efforts into promoting inland shipping and rail transport but not enough to realize the modal shift,” says Tim Buyse, MORA’s […]
August 23, 2022
In Schaarbeek, the railway infrastructure manager Infrabel started this summer with the renewal of the so-called Carwash junction, which forms the gateway to the Schaerbeek-Formation tracks. This is the largest switch renewal in Brussels in recent years, representing an investment of over 10 million euros. The renovation of the railway intersections, which will be finished […]
August 11, 2022
Due to the persistent drought and record temperatures, the water level in the Rhine near Kaub, between Koblenz and Mainz in Germany, is dropping so low that many cargo ships will no longer be able to sail there as of Friday. That is a problem for the industry. The Rhine, one of the busiest waterways […]
August 11, 2022
Electric carmaker Tesla will finally deliver the first fully battery-electric class-8 Semi trucks with a 500-mile (800 km) range by the end of 2022. At least, this is what Elon Musk promised on Twitter. And PepsiCo, which ordered 100 of them years ago, is probably the lucky one to get them first. Tesla unveiled the […]
August 11, 2022
On Wednesday, the new Willems quay in Balen along the Dessel-Kwaadmechelen channel has been officially inaugurated. “The installation of such quays has to promote inland shipping and inspire other companies,” said Flemish Minister of Mobility Lydia Peeters (Open Vld) at the inauguration. Inland shipping has the capacity to remove another 160 000 trucks from the […]
August 03, 2022
Hyundai is expanding its hydrogen truck fleet in Europe by delivering 27 XCIENT fuel cell trucks to seven German logistics, manufacturing, and retail companies. They applied and got approval for the funding of eco-friendly commercial vehicles from Germany’s Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport (BMDV). BMDV has a budget of 1,6 billion euros available until […]
