The annual NextETRUCK General Assembly meeting took place from 24-26 September at the premises of CERTH in the Greek city of Thessaloniki. The meeting, which also included an internal hybrid training on different digital twin solutions by AVL Austria, prepared the rollout of the electric vehicles in the pilot locations in early 2025.
Previous annual meetings were held in Brussels (BE) and Istanbul (TR). This year CERTH shared its premises and their Greek hospitality with representatives from all consortium partners. While many discussions remain internal, the following key points may be shared:
NextETRUCK updates
Project coordinator TNO set the scene by summarising the project results of the last twelve months, outlining upcoming goals and the plans of starting the pilots, as well as an update of recently announced freight vehicles in the framework of IAA Mobility Fair, which took place in mid-September.
The latest truck specifications were discussed, and recent photos of the test vehicles were shared by the pilot leaders. Additionally, the feedback of the European Commission was incorporated by defining a third route between the depots of the Turkish partner of Ford-Otosan.
Communication & events
2025 will offer several events for stakeholders and experts, as NextETRUCK aims to showcase its vehicles and related pilot plans. Please follow us on LinkedIn & Twitter/X to receive all upcoming invitations.
Several external events, such as EVS38 in Gothenburg, as well as the 16th ITS Congress in Sevilla and the POLIS Conference, are the project’s focus.
Finally, several webinars are currently being planned for next year, including an overview of our pilot activities and a deep dive into the latest trends of zero-emission freight vehicles and upcoming announcements of OEMs.
Workshop on digital twinning
After two full days of discussions about pilots, targets and work packages, AVL/AT provided a training on the full toolchain of the NextETRUCK digital twin framework to consortium partners on the morning of 26 September. The showcase and explanation of the latest tools included insights into the digital and semi-physical models that are currently finalised to simulate various driving parameters of the pilot vehicles. AVL/AT finished the interesting exchange with a full toolchain demo of every tool in the Framework for a particular use-case. Further information about the digital twinning solutions were also shared with the public in two webinars.
