OEMs Battle Over Engines
This story appears in the March 23 print edition of Transport Topics.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Truck and engine makers took advantage of one of the last major marketing forums before the onset of new federal emission rules to starkly set the stage for buyers of heavy-duty vehicles in choosing between SCR and EGR for their diesel engines.
Navistar Inc., the lone proponent of a third generation of exhaust gas recirculation technology, crossed swords with four of its six competitors at the Mid-America Trucking Show here March 17-21. The original equipment manufacturers offering selective catalytic reduction defended their products against Navistar’s accusations while launching salvos of their own against Navistar’s MaxxForce engines.
“The real buzz here is the 2010 emissions issue and EGR and SCR,” said Jack Allen, president of Navistar’s engine group. He savaged SCR as a solution without staying power to address federal regulatory changes he expects in future years.
“It adds $10,000 to the cost of a truck, adds 300 to 400 pounds in weight and requires the use of a toxic fluid. That’s not sustainable,” Allen said March 18 at a company-sponsored event for Navistar dealers and the press.
Meanwhile, the top executives of seven manufacturers that use SCR joined forces to return fire the next day.
“This is the first time, and probably also the last, that you will see representatives from the world’s three largest engine makers together in violent agreement on anything,” said Chris Patterson, president and chief executive officer of Daimler Trucks North America, referring to his company, Volvo AB and Cummins Inc.
Patterson called SCR a “silver bullet” that is good for business and the environment.
Perturbed by the Navistar campaign against SCR, which dates back at least to January 2007, David McKenna, sales and marketing director for Mack Trucks Inc., said the OEMs are involved in “rancorous technology debates.”
McKenna said Mack’s combination of EGR with SCR aftertreatment offers better fuel mileage, less frequent active regeneration of diesel particulate filters and engines that run at a lower temperature than EGR alone.
Bristling at Navistar’s assertion that diesel exhaust fluid — the urea-based product needed to make SCR work — is volatile and potentially explosive, McKenna poured a vial of DEF over a lit candle, extinguishing the flame.
In separate presentations, Mack and sister company Volvo Trucks North America produced endorsements from Burns Motor Freight Inc., Marlinton, W.Va., a truckload carrier owned by Fred Burns, a former chairman of American Trucking Associations, and from Watkins and Shepard Trucking Inc. CEO Ray Kuntz, ATA’s immediate past chairman.
Daniel Ustian, Navistar chairman and chief executive officer, said his company chose EGR because it is “a building block to what is good for the customer and a building block to the next round of emissions rules on carbon dioxide.”
Allen said the appeal of EGR is rooted in the fact that truck buyers have been using the technology since October 2002 and are now very familiar with it. He also said the approach makes no new demands on truck owners.
“SCR has five new major mission-critical components, but with our EGR, there’s nothing new,” Allen said. Navistar’s 2010 engines address the tighter standards for nitrogen oxide emissions through improvements in fuel injection, piston design, air management and combustion monitoring, he said.
The first two days of Mid-America featured two major engine unveilings. Independent engine maker Cummins Inc. presented 12-liter and 15-liter versions of its ISX model, and Navistar demonstrated its new 15-liter MaxxForce, which will be based in part on the Caterpillar C-15 engine.
The Jan. 1, 2010, tightening of emission standards will be the third in less than a decade by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The federal standard for nitrogen oxide emissions will drop to
0.2 gram per brake horsepower-hour from about 1.2 grams. The particulate matter standard will stay at 0.01 gram per unit of output.
Emissions limits also were tightened in January 2007 and October 2002. The OEMs have focused much of their argument on the issue of which technology approach is easier for customers to use.
Navistar executives said forcing drivers of SCR tractors to shop for DEF is not hospitable. Furthermore, the weight of SCR systems will cause carriers that haul heavy loads to forgo the last increments of tonnage as tractors bump up against the 80,000-pound weight limit.
Daimler’s Patterson shot back that asking customers to pay for 3% to 5% more fuel is inflicting a burden upon them. A Volvo engineer added that SCR engines require less-frequent active regeneration of soot filters than EGR models do, and that is far more liberating than asking a driver to pump a few gallons of diesel exhaust fluid.
Kenworth Trucks and Peterbilt Motors also will use SCR engines in 2010, but they did not attend MATS.
Caterpillar is leaving the truck engine business this year.
