Volkswagen’s Traton commercial vehicle subsidiary appears to have put the truck in gear and is starting to roll the massive and growing behemoth with both its play for Navistar in the USA and its MOU with Hino starting to move.
Traton and Hino last week signed a joint venture agreement for e-mobility in order to plan and provide e-mobility products that will be based on the two companies’ strategic partnership established almost two years ago.
The two companies will combine their strengths to develop electric vehicles including battery electric vehicles (BEV), fuel cell vehicles (FCV), and relevant components as well as creating common EV platforms including software and interfaces.
They will form a team of advanced specialists from both companies and launch activities in Södertälje in Sweden and in a second step in Tokyo. The two will team up to shorten lead times for future e-mobility products with battery and fuel cell technology with each convinced that both technologies will be needed in the future.
The 2018 agreement they signed has the aim of forming a mutually beneficial strategic long-term partnership they say. They went on to establish a procurement joint venture in 2019, and have now solidified the collaboration with e-mobility. Both companies have agreed to explore each other’s capabilities and investigate further possibilities to collaborate in other future fields of technology.
“Traton’s mission is to carefully balance the interests of people, planet and performance and this new joint venture with our partner Hino is the next important step in electrification, pushing our mission further ahead,” said Matthias Gründler, CEO of Traton.
Gründler reiterated that Traton has a goal of investing around one billion euros in electrification before 2025.
Hino boss Yoshio Shimo said he is delighted that the companies can follow the procurement joint venture and further embodying our synergy with Traton in e-mobility, to help reduce global CO2 emissions and fighting global warming.”
“We will combine our strengths as leading commercial vehicle manufacturers to offer EVs with the highest value for customers, through joint planning of commercial EVs,” said Shimo san, who is president and CEO of Hino.