European defense giant KNDS rolls out new heavy vehicle mobility kit

KNDS Mobility unveiled Celeris 8×8, a new mobility kit for heavy wheeled combat vehicles, at the MSPO defense trade show in Kielce, Poland, on September 10, 2026.

The kit is not a finished vehicle. It is a complete set of engineered components, engine, transmission, axles, suspension and onboard electronics, that vehicle makers and armed forces can build a custom armored vehicle around, for platforms weighing up to 36 tonnes.

The 8×8 version extends a platform KNDS Mobility already sells in 4×4 form. That smaller Celeris kit has been picked for vehicle programs in five countries, according to the company, including Finland, where the domestic firm SCATA has used it as the mobility base for its MK1 armored personnel carrier.

KNDS Mobility was formerly known as Texelis Defense, a French mobility-systems specialist based in Limoges and Roanne. KNDS France completed its acquisition of the company on April 2, 2026, and renamed it KNDS Mobility. Before the deal, Texelis had already supplied chassis and mobility components for the French Army’s Serval troop carrier, Singapore’s Terrex 8×8 and Serbia’s Lazar 3 8×8, work that KNDS says gives the new unit’s engineering team direct experience across the 4×4 to 8×8 weight range.

KNDS says the kit-based approach lets a manufacturer skip years of chassis development and get a new, locally built vehicle to the field in as little as one year from the start of a program. The company says Celeris 8×8 can support both chassis-based and monocoque hull designs, opening it to infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, amphibious variants and heavy logistics trucks.

KNDS has not named a customer for Celeris 8×8 or announced a signed contract built on the new kit. The company also has not disclosed pricing or a timeline for when the first vehicle using the platform might reach a customer.

KNDS, the parent company formed from the merger of France’s Nexter and Germany’s Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, employs close to 11,000 people and reported 4.4 billion euros (roughly $5.11 billion) in revenue in 2025. The company said its order backlog stood at 33.1 billion euros (roughly $38.4 billion) as of December 31, 2025, and that more than 40 armed forces use its equipment worldwide, including 24 in Europe.