The IAA commercial vehicle exhibition in Hannover, Germany, is the biggest trucking event in the world and yes, it’s all about Europe.
But let’s face it, Europe is increasingly the hub of most major developments impacting the efficiency, safety and ultimately, performance of heavy-duty trucks around the globe.
Nor should anyone lose sight of the fact that on the other side of the Atlantic, the great majority of North America’s truck brands are nowadays offshoots of immense European corporations.
Indeed, without Europe’s fiscal and managerial lifelines over the past three or four decades, several famous brands would today be little more than headstones: Freightliner and Mack, for example, and most recently, Navistar.
The lone wolf in the pack is, of course, Paccar but even this bastion of American pride has an umbilical attachment to developments within its continental colleague DAF. But to be fair, the Dutch truck would’ve probably also fallen down the well of extinction long ago if Paccar hadn’t turned the tables on its continental competitors and transformed DAF into arguably its greatest success story.
Yet even by Hannover’s high standards, 2022 was something very special and very different. With
