The new report from IDTechEx Research, Drones 2018-2038: Components, Technologies, Roadmaps, Market Forecasts, provides a comprehensive analysis of the drone market, considering components, technologies, application roadmaps and markets.

It is a technological megatrend providing billion dollar business opportunities. The unique new IDTechEx Research report "Smart Materials as Structural Electronics and Electrics 2019-2029" explains how structural materials can be electronically, electrically, mechanically, magnetically and optically smart nowadays.

The agreement, which will see udelv supply supermarkets like Uptown Grocery, Buy For Less, Buy For Less Super Mercado and Smart Saver with an initial 10 customized cargo vans to service online deliveries in the OKC metro area, is the largest ADV deal in the world to date.

This article concerns TactoTek in Oulu Finland and how its technologies can scale up and create billion dollar businesses.

Mercedes-Benz Trucks is starting practical trials for its all-electric heavy-duty eActros truck. The retail and logistics service provider Hermes is the first of 20 customers in different sectors who will integrate the electric truck into their fleets. Each customer will use a near-series 18 or 25-tonner in their normal operations for one year to test it for day-to-day suitability.

Key areas discussed and displayed at the LCV event include the battery, powertrain, lightweighting, autonomous driving and electric vehicle charging, from not only the technology but also business model and policy perspectives.

Audi strives to take electric mobility to the next level and plans to offer more than 20 electrified models by 2025 - some will be plug-in-hybrids - more than half will be fully-electric.

One of the biggest drawbacks of electric vehicles - that they require hours and hours to charge - could be obliterated by a new type of liquid battery that is roughly ten times more energy-dense than existing models.

NEXT announces the introduction of its fully automated multiservice 'online-to-offline' platform, including a modular vehicle solution and the supporting operating system required to bring an ecosystem of logistics services to market at scale.

IDTechEx will be hosting a free webinar on Tuesday 2 October titled Fuel Cell Vehicles

Daimler and Bosch have announced the successful premiere of their joint Automated Valet Parking pilot in Beijing. The technology symbolizes a pioneering effort in infrastructure-supported driverless parking and marks the first pilot of its kind in China.

A key trend across many sectors is the multifunctionality of structural parts. This has extended to fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite material and the added functionality ranges to: enhanced electrical & thermal conductivity, embedded sensors & actuators, energy storage & harvesting, data transmission, self-healing, and adaptive response (morphing) mechanisms.

Like the car equivalents, 48V mild hybrid trucks do not start as electric vehicles (driving the wheels electrically some or all of the time) but they are headed that way.

Electric vehicles are rapidly scaling up in production, but under the surface of this explosive growth there are significant competitions taking place across the supply chain.

After surfacing its Vespa Elettrica concept at EICMA last year, a large motorcycle trade show known for these sort of announcements from manufacturers, Piaggio finally announced that it will go to production this September, and that it will take preorders in October with the first deliveries later that month.

Tritium is receiving a portion of $3.2 million in federal funding awarded to the Electric Power Research Institute for developing an extreme fast charging system that can connect to the grid.

A rather unusual trolleybus has been navigating the streets of Zurich in recent months. With its large windscreen and covered wheels, it could easily be mistaken for a tram. It ­features a hybrid electric drive system that allows it to draw power from an on-board traction battery as well as ­overhead wires. But this bus is also "smart", boasting specially designed software that automatically gathers information on the route.

This is a technological megatrend. Dumb load-bearing metal structures move to plastic and composite and incorporate energy harvesting and storage material - massless energy. Indeed you could call some of it negative mass energy. Goodbye components-in-a-box.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May will announce £106 million for R&D in green vehicles, new batteries and low carbon technology.

Walmart Canada announced plans to power its fleet using 100 per cent alternative power by 2028. To meet that goal, the company has announced plans to acquire an additional 30 Tesla 18-wheeler semi-trucks, building on its original order of 10 trucks in November 2017.