The Global Light Vehicle (LV) selling rate was 82 mn units/year in July, prolonging the weaker trend seen in recent months. The semiconductor shortage held back the post-lockdown recovery of vehicle sales in Europe, while its impact on inventories in the US meant average transaction prices rocketed, according to the LMC Automotive Consultancy. Worse, rising Delta variant cases threaten to impair the outlook in parts of Asia.
The US Light Vehicle market continued to be hurt by low inventories during July. Sales grew by only 3.2% YoY, to 1.28 mn units. This is a slight advance compared to July 2020’s pandemic-affected result. The selling rate declined more to 14.6 mn units/year, from 15.4 mn units/year in June. This is the lowest rate since June 2020. Continue reading












Mercedes-Benz Brazil Shows Electric Bus
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Mercedes-Benz of Brazil has shown a fully electric eO500U bus chassis designed for Latin American cities. It will be produced at São Bernardo do Campo, in the Brazilian state of São Paulo starting in 2022. The electric bus chassis has a range of up to 250 kilometers.
The battery charging system of the eO500U is a plug-in design with the same technological that Daimler Buses has installed in the fully-electric Mercedes-Benz eCitaro city bus. A full charge of the high-voltage batteries takes around three hours. (Daimler Truck, Volvo Group Create “cellcentric” Fuel-Cell JV; Daimler to Spin-Off Daimler Truck into Separate Company; Daimler Boards Approve Spin Off of Mercedes-Benz Cars and Daimler Truck as Two companies. Shareholder Vote in October; Mercedes-Benz – New Platforms Electric Only From 2025) Continue reading →