Navistar’s New ProStar Plus Will Be Unveiled in March

This story appears in the Jan. 25 print edition of Transport Topics.

MELROSE PARK, Ill. — Navistar Inc. said it will introduce a new version of its top over-the-road tractor this year called the International ProStar Plus, and moved up the launch of its 15-liter engine to October from next year.

Navistar executives made the announcements in a Jan. 19 meeting with financial analysts at its headquarters here.

“We’re going to introduce a new ProStar,” Jack Allen, president of Navistar’s North American Truck Group, said. “We’re going to introduce the ProStar Plus in the middle of 2010 that’s going to have aerodynamic enhancements to it, along with driver comfort enhancements.”

Allen said that Navistar would unveil the ProStar Plus at the Mid-America Trucking Show, scheduled for March 25-27 in Louisville, Ky.

“The aerodynamic piece is going to improve fuel economy by 2% to 3% on our products in 2010,” Allen said, referring to the new tractor.

Navistar spokesman Roy Wiley told Transport Topics that the ProStar Plus would be lighter than its predecessor.

“We eliminated 700 pounds of tractor weight with the [original] ProStar,” said Ramin Younessi, group vice president for product development and strategy.

“We’re very comfortable believing that we’re going to maintain fuel-economy leadership in on-highway products for 2010,” Allen said.

Navistar executives credited the ProStar, first delivered to customers in early 2007, for much of the company’s growth in the heavy-duty market. Navistar’s market share has climbed to 28% of the U.S. Class 8 market from 19.7% in 2007.

On the engine front, Navistar said last year that it would bring out a 15-liter engine in the spring of 2011, which would have an engine block from Caterpillar Inc., which exited the heavy-duty engine market last year.

Navistar entered the heavy-duty engine market last year when it began production of its MaxxForce 11- and 13-liter models, based on a design from European manufacturer MAN AG.

“We’ve done a fantastic job with the cooperation of Caterpillar on the bottom end of this engine.” Dan Ustian, Navistar’s chairman and chief executive officer, told analysts, referring to the 15-liter model.

“We have advanced many, many months ahead of schedule on that,” Ustian said. “We’re going to pull up the start up of that launch of the 15-liter to October, because we’re confident that we’re ready.”

He said that fleets already were running test models.

“We have some in customers’ hands today,” Ustian said. “I think some of our competitors may be shocked by our ability to do that. They’re out there today.”

Navistar, unlike all other truck makers, uses only exhaust gas recirculation to meet federal emissions mandates that went into effect on Jan. 1.

Other manufacturers use selective catalytic reduction, reducing nitrogen oxide emissions in the exhaust system, rather than in the combustion process.

Some SCR proponents have said that the intense levels of EGR needed to meet 2010 mandates for low NOx would produce very high heat levels, which they said would shorten an engine’s life span.

Ustian spoke to that issue.

“There are some stories about how to deal with the heat, how to deal with more EGR,” Ustian said.

“There is no more heat,” he said. “The engines actually run a little bit cooler. There’s no rocket science to it, and there’s no loss in fuel economy.”

Younessi said that Navistar had no date for getting Environmental Protection Agency certification for its 2010 heavy-duty engines.

Executives said that they did not expect demand for them to pick up until the summer.

Having ended its link with Cummins Inc. in 2009, Navistar will not have a 15-liter model to offer until the end of the year.

“I continually hear that we are going to lose market share because we are going to have a gap in 15-liters,” Allen said.

“That’s really not what we are planning on doing going forward this year,” Allen added. “What we’ve really been working on is to plan very carefully with our dealers and with our customers to fill the 15-liter needs of our customer base by a strategy that provides them with their needs early in the process and then late in the process by deferring their purchases into future times.”

Customers early in 2010 will be able to buy 2009 engines that manufacturers can legally put into a 2010 truck, as long as the engine itself was built in 2009.

Navistar executives also said they were designing an entirely new chassis for Classes 4-5 trucks, in part to take advantage of General Motors’ withdrawal from this market. They gave no date for its launch.