Plant & Equipment News

Keeping Connected Construction Machinery Online Across Borders

Keeping Connected Construction Machinery Online Across Borders A Komatsu excavator working in Saudi Arabia presents few unusual mechanical challenges simply because it was built for an international market. Its diesel engine, hydraulic system and undercarriage do not particularly care which side of a national border they occupy. The communications equipment transmitting operating data from that &#… Read more…

John Deere Targets the Transport Sweet Spot with New 40 P-Tier Excavator

John Deere Targets the Transport Sweet Spot with New 40 P-Tier Excavator John Deere is adding a new machine between its 35 P-Tier and 50 P-Tier compact excavators, targeting a particularly useful part of the market where digging performance, attachment capability and transport weight have to coexist. The new 40 P-Tier Compact Excavator is scheduled … Read more…

Miller Plant Invests in Smarter Cat Earthmoving Fleet

Miller Plant Invests in Smarter Cat Earthmoving Fleet Miller Plant Ltd has committed £1.7 million to a seven-machine Caterpillar fleet for civil engineering and infrastructure work across north-east Scotland, combining additional earthmoving capacity with onboard safety, grading and fleet-management technology. The Inverurie-based contractor’s order from Finning UK & Ireland includes a Cat 966… Read more…

Mascus at 25 and the Evolution of Used Equipment Sales

Mascus at 25 and the Evolution of Used Equipment Sales Selling a used excavator across borders was a considerably more cumbersome business when Mascus launched its first website in Helsinki in January 2001. Machinery dealers still depended heavily on printed classified advertising, established trading relationships, physical yards and telephone enquiries, while presenting hundreds of thousands &#8… Read more…

Volvo A45 Hauler Makes its Japanese Quarry Debut

Volvo A45 Hauler Makes its Japanese Quarry Debut A one-tonne increase in payload does not sound particularly dramatic on a machine already capable of carrying more than 40 tonnes. Repeated hundreds of times through a quarry haul cycle, however, small changes in payload, loading accuracy and fuel consumption begin to accumulate. That is the operating … Read more…

Autonomous Rollers Move into Production on Puerto Rico Airport Project

Autonomous Rollers Move into Production on Puerto Rico Airport Project Three autonomous compaction rollers are working together on the construction of a new runway at Rafael Hernández International Airport in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, with a single operator supervising all three machines. Ferrovial has adapted the rollers to operate autonomously within predefined working areas, following planned &#8… Read more…

Develon Puts Machine Intervention and Electric Excavation to Work at steinexpo

Develon Puts Machine Intervention and Electric Excavation to Work at steinexpo Construction machinery safety systems are beginning to cross an important boundary. Cameras, radar and object detection have spent years giving operators more information about what is happening around a machine. Develon’s latest excavator technology goes further, allowing the machine itself to respond when a &#82… Read more…

Komatsu Pushes Excavator Development Closer to Asia’s Jobsites

Komatsu Pushes Excavator Development Closer to Asia’s Jobsites Komatsu is expanding its excavator range for Asian growth markets with three machines spanning the 7-tonne and 20-tonne classes, but the more interesting development is taking place behind the specifications. The new PC75-10M0 is the first hydraulic excavator developed under the leadership of Komatsu India Private Limited … Read more…

HD Construction Equipment and Manitou Building a Bigger Compact Machinery Business

HD Construction Equipment and Manitou Building a Bigger Compact Machinery Business HD Construction Equipment and Manitou Group have agreed to exchange compact construction equipment across their respective product portfolios, creating a cross-distribution arrangement that gives both manufacturers a faster route to broaden their machinery ranges. For HD Construction Equipment, the agreement carries… Read more…

From Toilet Paper to Robots – How Road Crack Sealing Has Evolved

From Toilet Paper to Robots – How Road Crack Sealing Has Evolved In November 2016, Highways.Today published one of those stories that sounded too ridiculous to ignore. Road maintenance crews in Littleton, Colorado, were repairing cracks in asphalt and then covering the fresh sealant with toilet paper. There was nothing particularly sophisticated about it. The … Read more…

Xwatch Safety Tech Moves Into Fleet Specification at Select Plant Hire

Xwatch Safety Tech Moves Into Fleet Specification at Select Plant Hire Around 30 new JCB machines entering the Select Plant Hire fleet are passing through an Xwatch installation programme as part of a wider £5 million equipment investment, putting machine safety technology into the specification before much of the new plant reaches its working environment. … Read more…

Ritchie Bros. Lines Up 1,300+ Lots for UK and Ireland Equipment Auction

Ritchie Bros. Lines Up 1,300+ Lots for UK and Ireland Auction More than 1,300 equipment lots are now listed for Ritchie Bros.’ UK and Ireland unreserved auction on 23 and 24 September, bringing excavators, dozers, access equipment, telehandlers, trucks and agricultural machinery together for one of the larger equipment sales of the autumn. The live … Read more…

Palletised Variable Message Sign Removes the Trailer from Urban Roadworks

Palletised Variable Message Sign Removes the Trailer from Urban Roadworks Variable message signs have spent decades travelling with their own trailers. SG has now separated the two, developing a pallet-mounted VMS that can be delivered, positioned and moved using a shared lifting trailer, forklift or lorry-mounted crane rather than carrying a dedicated towable chassis beneath … Read more…

Updated Volkswagen Caddy Rolls Off the Line in Poznań

Updated Volkswagen Caddy Rolls Off the Line in Poznań Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles has started production of its updated Caddy in Poznań, Poland, extending a manufacturing programme that has produced almost 2.9 million examples at the plant since 2003. The changes are evolutionary rather than a wholesale redesign. Volkswagen has concentrated on the areas drivers encounter … Read more…

HKX Brings Field-Installed Hydraulics to Wheel Loaders

HKX Brings Field-Installed Hydraulics to Wheel Loaders Ordering a wheel loader with auxiliary hydraulics can mean a factory lead time of 12 to 20 weeks, according to HKX. The company’s first field-installable hydraulic kits for wheel loaders are designed to move that configuration work from the factory to the dealer workshop, allowing machines already in … Read more…

Buying a Used Excavator Without Buying Someone Else’s Problems

Buying a Used Excavator Without Buying Someone Else’s Problems A used excavator with clean paint, reasonable hours and an attractive price can still conceal an expensive history. Worn undercarriages, tired hydraulic components, structural repairs and undocumented modifications rarely show themselves in the sales photographs, but they can quickly become the most expensive part of ownership. … Read more…

Develon Refines DX35Z-7 Mini Excavator for Confined-Site Work

Develon Refines DX35Z-7 Mini Excavator for Confined-Site Work Develon has reworked its four-tonne zero-tail-swing mini excavator with a new engine, altered boom geometry and faster arm movement, concentrating much of the engineering on visibility, hydraulic response and the everyday operation of the machine. The upgraded DX35Z-7 uses Develon’s 18.4 kW DW01 Stage V diesel engine … Read more…

Carbon-Fibre Dust Puts Electric Compressor Design to the Test at Hexcel

Carbon-Fibre Dust Puts Electric Compressor Design to the Test at Hexcel Electrifying industrial equipment becomes a rather different engineering proposition when conductive carbon-fibre dust is circulating through the building. That was the problem facing composite materials manufacturer Hexcel when it needed to replace the standby compressed-air capacity at one of its production facilities. Previ… Read more…

Volvo Electric Machines Put Nuremberg’s Zero-Emission Tender to the Test

Volvo Electric Machines Put Nuremberg’s Zero-Emission Tender to the Test Nuremberg has turned the demolition of a former nursery into an unusual test of municipal procurement. The German city required the Sauerbrey site in Westpark to be demolished without conventional combustion-powered machinery, extending the requirement beyond excavators and loaders to the trucks moving material from &#8… Read more…

HKX Acquisition Takes MPS into Construction Equipment

HKX Acquisition Takes MPS into Construction Equipment Multi Parts Solutions has entered the construction equipment sector through the acquisition of HKX, bringing a specialist in excavator hydraulics and electronic control integration into a business previously concentrated on automotive and commercial vehicle markets. The deal makes Monroe, Washington-based HKX the third operating division of MPS… Read more…

MAJOR Takes High-Vibration Screening into the Basalt Quarry at steinexpo

MAJOR Takes High-Vibration Screening into the Basalt Quarry at steinexpo Screening equipment rarely receives the attention given to crushers, excavators and loaders in a quarry, yet comparatively small changes at the screen deck can have consequences throughout the production process. Blocked apertures restrict capacity, incorrectly sized material becomes carryover, abrasive rock accelerates wear… Read more…

Volvo R70 Rigid Hauler Makes European Debut at Bettenfeld Quarry

Volvo R70 Rigid Hauler Makes European Debut at Bettenfeld Quarry Europe’s first Stage V Volvo R70 rigid hauler has entered service at SHF Steinbruchbetriebe’s Bettenfeld Quarry in Germany, where rigid haulers routinely accumulate between 25,000 and 35,000 operating hours. Built at Volvo Construction Equipment’s Motherwell facility in Scotland, the 65-tonne machine joins a quarry… Read more…

Making Existing Diesel Trucks Compatible with Electric Highways

Making Existing Diesel Trucks Compatible with Electric Highways Europe has spent years proving that heavy trucks can draw power from overhead lines while travelling at motorway speeds. Germany’s ELISA field trial ran from 2019 until the end of 2024, putting specially equipped trucks into real traffic and recording more than 146,000 kilometres under catenary power. … Read more…

Mountain Bike Trail Building Turns to On-Site Material Processing

Mountain Bike Trail Building Turns to On-Site Material Processing Mountain bike trails may be built for recreation, but beneath the berms, rollers and carefully shaped corners sits a surprisingly conventional earthworks problem. Material has to be excavated, graded, placed and compacted, while water has to be controlled and the finished surface must withstand repeated loading … Read more…

Seven Liebherr Cranes Coordinate Ulm’s B10 Bridge Reconstruction

Seven Liebherr Cranes Coordinate Ulm’s B10 Bridge Reconstruction Replacing a major road bridge above an operating railway is as much a problem of space and logistics as it is one of lifting capacity. In Ulm, Germany, seven Liebherr tower cranes are being assembled into a coordinated lifting system for the reconstruction of the Wallstraßenbrücke, where … Read more…

Ritchie Bros. Takes Heavy Equipment Bidding Fully Mobile

Ritchie Bros. Takes Heavy Equipment Bidding Fully Mobile Buying a used excavator, truck or wheel loader at auction no longer necessarily requires a buyer to stop what they are doing, open a laptop and settle in front of a browser. Ritchie Bros. has redesigned its mobile application to bring the complete bidding process inside the … Read more…

Mastenbroek Refines 20/15 Drainage Trencher for 2026

Mastenbroek Refines 20/15 Drainage Trencher for 2026 A machine first introduced in 1981 might seem an unlikely place to look for equipment development, but Mastenbroek’s latest 20/15 drainage trencher makes a good case for evolution rather than reinvention. The Lincolnshire manufacturer has updated the long-running self-propelled machine for 2026, concentrating on the things that determine &… Read more…

Used Equipment Supply Tightens as European Buyer Demand Accelerates

Used Equipment Supply Tightens as European Buyer Demand Accelerates Demand for used tractor units across Europe rose 72% year-on-year during the second quarter of 2026 while the number advertised for sale fell by 26%. Few figures capture the current condition of Europe’s secondary equipment market quite so neatly. Ritchie Bros.’ latest European Market Trends Report … Read more…

Liebherr Brings Electrified Quarrying and Heavy Machinery to steinexpo

Liebherr Brings Electrified Quarrying and Heavy Machinery to steinexpo A 130-tonne electric mining excavator connected directly to the grid will sit alongside a 564 kWh mobile battery system when Liebherr arrives at steinexpo in September. Around them will be more familiar quarry machinery: a 30-tonne articulated dump truck, large XPower wheel loaders, Generation 8 crawler … Read more…

How Drive-by-Wire Is Reshaping Autonomous Machine Architecture

How Drive-by-Wire Is Reshaping Autonomous Machine Architecture The international rulebook for fully automated vehicles acquired considerably more substance in June 2026 when the UNECE World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations adopted the first global framework covering Automated Driving Systems capable of operating without continuous human control. UN Regulation No. 185 and UN Global Te… Read more…

Volvo EC400 Hybrid Cuts Fuel Use by 30% at Clariant Bentonite Mines

Volvo EC400 Hybrid Excavator Cuts Fuel Use by 30% at Clariant Bentonite Mines At Clariant’s bentonite pits in Lower Bavaria, a Volvo EC400 Hybrid excavator has reduced fuel consumption by around 30% against the EC380E it replaced. The saving comes from the repeated stripping of overburden that must be moved before any bentonite is reached, … Read more…

Nextpower Pushes Solar Integration Deeper into the Power Plant with NX PowerMerge

Nextpower Pushes Solar Integration Deeper into the Power Plant with NX PowerMerge A single patent on a direct current connector rarely shifts an industry, yet United States patent 12,712,292 tells a pointed story about where margin and defensibility are collecting in utility-scale solar. The grant covers Nextpower’s NX PowerMerge electrical balance of systems (eBOS) trunk … Read more…

What to Look for When Replacing Old Access Covers

What to Look for When Replacing Old Access Covers Replacing worn or outdated infrastructure rarely feels urgent until something actually breaks.  Cracked lids or corroded frames are more than just eyesores, as they quickly evolve into genuine safety hazards. When you begin sourcing new access covers for a site, the stakes are almost always higher … Read more…

Hyundai and Shell Pivot to E-Fluids and Thermal Management

Hyundai and Shell Pivot to E-Fluids and Thermal Management On the surface, Hyundai Motor Company’s decision to extend its global cooperation agreement with Shell Lubricants through 2031 reads like the routine renewal of a supplier relationship that has run since 2005. The substance underneath is more consequential. The engine oil marketing that built the partnership … Read more…

First USA Built Volvo Excavators Signal a Shift Towards Regional Manufacturing

First USA Built Volvo Excavators Signal a Shift Towards Regional Manufacturing The first excavators and large wheel loaders assembled on American soil by Volvo Construction Equipment have begun reaching customers from the company’s plant in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, and the milestone carries more commercial weight than a routine production update. The manufacturer now builds more than &#82… Read more…

Dual-Power Equipment the Practical Route for Landscape Electrification

Dual-Power Equipment the Practical Route for Landscape Electrification The professional landscaping sector has spent the better part of a decade being told it faces a binary choice between the petrol engines it trusts and the battery power that regulators increasingly demand. ELIET’s decision to build its Prof 6 shredding platform around both, using power systems … Read more…

DEVELON Expands Compact Equipment Strategy with DEF-Free Track Loaders

DEVELON Expands Compact Equipment Strategy with DEF-Free Track Loaders DEVELON’s decision to build two compact track loaders that need no diesel exhaust fluid reads, at first glance, like a modest maintenance convenience. Seen against the shape of the North American compact equipment market, it looks more deliberate than that. By dropping the D24 engine into … Read more…

Tower Cranes Take Construction Engineering into Amazon Climate Science

Tower Cranes Take Construction Engineering into Amazon Climate Science The deployment of four Liebherr 85 EC-B tower cranes at the AmazonFACE research site near Manaus reads, at first glance, as a curiosity: construction plant repurposed for science, a photogenic footnote to a climate story. The more useful reading for anyone in the equipment business is … Read more…

Vermeer and Interlune to Industrialise the Lunar Construction Supply Chain

Vermeer and Interlune to Industrialise the Lunar Construction Supply Chain The most revealing thing about the expanded partnership between Interlune and Vermeer is not that a lunar excavator exists. It is that a mainstream industrial-equipment manufacturer, with nearly eight decades of terrestrial earthmoving behind it, now treats the Moon as a serviceable jobsite rather than … Read more…

LANDCROS Signals Hitachi’s Shift from Construction to Construction Intelligence

LANDCROS Signals Hitachi’s Shift from Machinery to Construction Intelligence Hitachi Construction Machinery has opened its LANDCROS Innovation Studios Challenge to Europe for the first time, inviting startups to submit ready-to-test solutions between 31 July and 30 September 2026 and pitch to the company and its partners at a Demo Day in Amsterdam on 3 December … Read more…