Seventeen partners want to turn the so-called Rhine-Alps corridor stretching from Rotterdam to Genoa into a purely hydrogen-based transport route – by water, road and rail. The RH₂INE project stands for ‘Rhine Hydrogen Integration Network of Excellence’.

Faurecia has just received a major order from Hyundai for hydrogen storage systems for fuel cell vehicles. The French company will supply the entire system including 10,000 tanks for the 1,600 H2 trucks that Hyundai plans to launch on the Swiss market.

Renault Trucks has signed a contract with the Carlsberg Group for the supply of 20 purely electric 26-tonne Z.E. trucks. The electric trucks are to be delivered to the brewery in Feldschlösschen, Switzerland this year.

The Swiss energy group Alpiq is now launching its electric mobility subscription service Juicar in Germany and Italy. Juicar has been on the market in Switzerland since August 2018. In Germany the subscription is now available nationwide in cooperation with the fleet operator Arval.

Everything was to be so simple – one price for everyone, charged per kWh at all stations with Ionity’s high power charging network. Only it wasn’t that simple, as so-called mobility service operators got exclusive deals and charge differently – to much dismay and a competitor’s delight.

Following the decision by the City of Basel to purchase 20 electric refuse collection vehicles, the Swiss commercial vehicle maker Futuricum prevailed in a tender. The Designwerk brand will deliver the first twelve garbage trucks starting at the end of 2020.

The US-American startup Lucid Motors has now opened European reservation books for the first model Lucid Air. The startup says it will officially unveil the Tesla-like debut car in New York in April. Deliveries in Europe are scheduled to begin at the end of 2021.

Gotthard FASTcharge (GOFAST) recently opened one of Switzerland’s largest fast-charging parks at a service station, using eight Nissan Leaf batteries as a buffer. “Fake news” of a diesel generator being used circulated so stubbornly on social media, however, that GOFAST now took counteraction.

The German car industry has “decided” to recognise Tesla’s achievements. VW congratulated Tesla in a newspaper ad on its choice of Model 3 as “Swiss Car of the Year 2020” but promises that the competition will become stronger next year with the ID.3.

Over the past few months, one of the largest Swiss fast charging locations has been built at the Würenlos service station. It was built by Gotthard FASTcharge (GOFAST). The site offers 20 charging spots and up to 300 kW charging capacity. More than 300 charges per day are possible.

Following the Polestar 1 PHEV model, Polestar will also be offering the all-electric Polestar 2 in Switzerland starting next year. It will be the seventh European market for the first BEV from Sweden.

The Australian city of Brisbane wants to procure 60 electric buses. The vehicles will be built by the manufacturers Hess from Switzerland and Volgren from Australia and will be quickly charged with ABB flash charging technology.

German and European car manufacturers are currently fully committed to the battery and still very hesitant regarding the fuel cell. Toyota is doing it the other way around. Hyundai wants to develop both technologies in parallel. A closer look at what the Koreans have in mind.

Volvo Trucks have just announced the start of sales for their Volvo FL and Volvo FE electric trucks in selected European markets, namely Sweden, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, France and the Netherlands. Serial production is planned for March 2020.

ABB has inaugurated a production facility for energy storage systems used in railways, electric buses and electric trucks in the Swiss city of Baden. The new plant will assemble standardised battery modules from battery cells.

The Chinese electric car brand Byton has now started production of the pre-production series of its first M-Byte model at its Nanjing plant. The manufacturer says it already has 50,000 reservations for the EV worldwide.

The Nissan Charge App developed by Nissan and Plugsurfing enables electric car drivers to charge at over 100,000 charging points throughout Europe. The service that includes navigation and charge management first launches in Italy and Germany before successively covering other markets.

The Microlino saga continues as the (cloned) cabin scooter presented by Artega at the IAA under the new name Karo, has now been explicitly banned by interim injunction, following two previous injunctions.

The plans of the Swiss manufacturer Fox Automotive to produce a new version of the Mia electric car are becoming more concrete. Fox Automotive has set up a subsidiary in Hungary for this purpose, which will be headed by Ekkehard Philipp as CEO.

By 2025, Hyundai intends to bring a total of 1,600 fuel cell trucks onto the Swiss market and has just released details. The first 50 Hyundai H2 XCIENT will be delivered to Switzerland next year. 

The Swiss charging station network evpass has joined forces with the oil companies and pit stop operators Tamoil, AVIA and Oel-Pool to set up a network of ultra-fast charging stations for electric cars in Switzerland under the name evpass Express.

Seat has published the price for the Mii electric for Germany. The small electric car of the Spanish Volkswagen subsidiary will be available at a basic list price of 20,650 euros and is, therefore, cheaper than the sister models of the Škoda and VW brands.

The industrial gases group Linde has acquired a ten per cent stake in Hydrospider AG. Hydrospider specialises in generating “green” hydrogen by using power from a hydroelectricity station in Switzerland.

Alpiq and H2 Energy (H2E) are planning Switzerland’s first plant for the production of hydrogen in commercial operation. From the end of 2019, hydrogen for the first 50 of a total of 1,600 fuel cell trucks will be produced at the Gösgen hydroelectric power station using hydroelectric power.

The all-electric Mini Cooper SE can now be reserved in a total of twelve European countries; These are Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

Tesla has again made various changes to its model price range. The most important updates are as follows: The Standard-Range versions of the Model S and Model X are out (again), while the Model 3 is now cheaper.

MAN has delivered eleven units of their eTGE to Swiss Post, which is deploying the electric transporters in Berne, Geneva and St. Gallen. Swiss Post intends to use up to 400 electric-powered delivery vans for parcel delivery by 2023.

Basel’s city government has announced intentions to add another 200 additional charging stations to be installed in the canton by 2026. To this end, a new law is to put the charging facilities on a legal footing.

Through its Helvetia Venture Fund, the Swiss insurance company Helvetia is now investing in Chargery, the Berlin mobile charging service for electric cars. These funds should enable Chargery to expand its services into other cities.

ABB presented the first electric truck in Berne. By the end of 2022, the company plans to convert its fleet to zero-emission vehicles gradually in Switzerland. The current three-axe model was developed together with E-Force One but runs on ABB technology.