Daimler’s Detroit Unit Unveils Upgrades to 2013 Heavy-Duty Truck Engine Line

DETROIT — Detroit Diesel Corp. announced a series of enhancements to its 2013 Detroit heavy-duty truck engines that are designed to improve their fuel efficiency and reduce the cost of running and maintaining them.

Company officials also announced here that they will continue to offer an upgraded version of their current 15-liter engine next year — renamed the DD15TC.

That engine will only be available in Freightliner’s new Cascadia Evolution; both Detroit and Freightliner are brands of Daimler Trucks North America. The new engine will be more fuel efficient, but will also cost more, Detroit said.

Officials said the 2013 versions of their existing engines will all have enhancements such as fuel injector nozzle modifications, new crankcase sensors designed to enhance onboard diagnostics and an upgraded fuel system that eliminates one filter and increases service intervals from the current 50,000 miles to 100,000 miles.

At a press event here at the company’s main engine plant, Detroit executives said the

2013 DD16 will have additional horsepower and torque ratings, some of which have been shifted from the 15-liter model. The DD16 will now be available up to 600 horsepower and up to 2,050 pounds of torque.

Detroit, which has already announced that all of its 2013 engines will meet new federal greenhouse-gas emissions limits that will go into effect in 2014, is looking to harvest federal emissions credits by introducing the cleaner-burning engines early.

T.J. Reed, Freightliner’s director of product marketing, said the company will use the credits to allow it to continue to sell engines in market categories where Detroit engines won’t initially meet the new GHG rules, such as off-road applications.

Mark Lampert, senior vice president of sales and marketing for DTNA, said the new GHG regulations also require a major improvement in onboard diagnostics, so many new things will have to be measured.

Lampert said most of this would come from new software in the trucks, since most of the required sensors are already in place in current designs.

He also noted that engine model years begin on Jan. 1 of the year — as set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — while truck model years don’t. So the 2013 enhancements de-scribed by officials will be in place when the new year begins, Lampert said. Meanwhile, Tim Tindall, director of engine and component sales for Detroit, told reporters that 40 of Freightliner’s new Evolution model trucks already were being tested by fleets and that 61 more trucks would be delivered soon.

Tindall said the test trucks are already yielding their fleets a 6.7% fuel gain, even though they don’t have all the improvements that the production trucks will have, such as a new transmission from Detroit.

The press event was held at DTNA’s Redford plant, which is located on the outskirts of Detroit. The sprawling plant, which employs some 2,300 people, was originally a General Motors engine plant, which was eventually sold to a spinoff company owned by GM and Roger Penske.

Plant manager Jeff Allen said the facility was currently recycling 94% of its waste and byproducts, and the Detroit officials expected to reach 100% by the end of 2012.

DTNA first unveiled the Evolution at an event outside of Washington, D.C., on May 30, saying the new model will have about a 7% improvement in fuel efficiency over existing ones.