Bauma 2025 - What did we learn?
Bauma 2025 gave us a glimpse of the industry's future; and that future is now as clean and clear-cut as some might imagine.
As we speak, exhibition stands are being dismantled and booths are being disassembled; machines and attachments are being loaded onto waiting vehicles; and tens of thousands of men and women are leaving Munich and heading back to their day job. Bauma is over for another three years and a hush and a stillness are slowly descending - once again - upon the Messe Munchen.
Tonight in Munich, it will be a little bit easier to buy a beer. The waiting time for schnitzel and pork knuckle will have returned to something approaching normality. You’ll be able to get a taxi in under an hour; and hotel rates will have become miraculously less exorbitant.
And so, as we look at the massive digger fest in our rear-view mirror, it is time to take stock. To look back on a stupendous and memorable show and ask ourselves a difficult question: What did we learn?
Well, we learned that, regardless of just how fit we believe ourselves to be, Bauma is punishing and unrelenting. We learned that those in the field of demolition and construction equipment are quite content to leave concerns over trade wars and tariffs to those in a higher pay grade while we all just get on with our lives. And we learned that the age of the industry influencer is not over; it has barely begun. May God have mercy on us all.
But we also learned some fundamental truths that speak to the state of the construction equipment nation today and in the foreseeable future. Those truths were not heralded in weasel-word press releases; they were not the subject of a razzamatazz launch; and no-one saw fit to feature them in a TikTok video. But they were there just the same. And they probably said more about the industry than any of the stunning new machines ever could.
Truth number one is that hydrogen is not ready to take up the mantle as the industry’s fuel of choice. Hydrogen brings with it an enormous amount of promise. But as the dust settles on Bauma 2025, it is patently clear that it cannot fulfil that promise now or any time soon.
In fact, call me a cynic, but I am now waiting for the anti-hydrogen backlash to begin, even before we have got our collective hands on machines capable of running on this much-heralded super fuel. Key among the unanswered questions surrounding hydrogen is precisely the same as the question raised against a switch to electric: Unless you’re getting the hydrogen (or electricity) from a wholly sustainable and zero emissions source, what is the point?
Even if there is a good answer to that question, it does not address the availability of hydrogen fuel or its likely cost.
Post-Bauma 2025, hydrogen fuel is like a popular local band. It can play all the right notes, it clearly has a core following; but it’s not ready for the big stage quite yet.
What else did we learn from Bauma 2025? Well, it would be stating the obvious to say that autonomy was probably closer to the mainstream than hydrogen fuel at present. But looking beyond that simplistic headline reveals a wider and more troubling future concern for the sector.
As much as the likes of Bobcat, Komatsu and Liebherr like to push the technological envelope, none of them are in the business of spending millions of dollars merely to prove that a machine can operate without human involvement. They are doing it for a very good reason; and that reason is that the construction industry (and the allied demolition, quarrying, mining and waste sectors) will be required to do more in the future, but with far fewer people.
As an industry, we have been the architects of our own downfall. At the same time we have allowed, encouraged and even forced some of our most experienced workers out of the industry, we have simultaneously failed to attract anyone to replace them. The industry’s future has been built upon the shifting sands of human involvement. With that human involvement increasingly in doubt, equipment manufacturers have had no choice but to seek alternatives that will still allow them to sell machines, even if there are fewer and fewer people out there to drive them.
In a similar vain, we learned that equipment and the global brands that sell it are no longer separated by an additional few kilowatts of power, by the ability to do more for a thimble-full less diesel, or by the comfort of the machine cab or the seat within it. The key differentiator today - and for the foreseeable future - is technology and how it is applied.
In fact, there has been such a shift towards the development and application of technology that there are now several global brands operating in the demolition and construction equipment space that are increasingly technology companies that just happen to make diggers.
From driver aids and machine guidance systems, telematics and remote control and autonomous solutions. The battle for supremacy among equipment manufacturers will be fought not in hard metal but in software.
We learned that modularity could be a watch-word for equipment in the future. The Landcros One concept machine from Hitachi - much like the power agnostic Komatsu mining truck that we saw at the MINExpo show last year - has been designed to accommodate a diesel engine, a battery electric power pack, OR a hydrogen fuel cell.
While the precise nature of the industry’s future fuel hangs in the balance, equipment manufacturers are racing to cover all the bases to ensure they’re ready, whichever way the fuel cards fall.
There was one other thing we learned. It was whispered about in the aisles and in the beer halls so that only those with their ear pressed firmly to the ground could hear it.
Speak to the major brands, particularly those that are active in the heavier mining and quarry end of the sector, and it is only a matter of time till you hear the phrase “built to be rebuilt” or something very similar. That expression speaks to a realisation that, in many cases, the most sustainable solution might not be a new machine; it might be the retention, rebuilding or remanufacturing of one you already have.
Such a notion goes against everything that makes Bauma - well - Bauma. Aisle upon aisle, row upon row, stand upon stand of shiny new steel, fresh off the production line.
But, if we are serious about doing our bit to safeguard the Earth’s resources and its climate, maybe we all need to look beyond the glimmer of fresh paint and the thrill of the new; and embrace the patina of age and the comfort of durability.
Whatever happens with fuel, technology, autonomy, modularity and sustainability, you can rest assured of one thing. When Bauma 2028 rolls around, it will yet again reflect the industry’s direction of travel better than any exhibition in the world.