Emissions Authority

Diesel Summit II

A 2007 pre-buy may be inevitable, but technology will not be the issue that drives it

Steve Sturgess
Senior Editor

      The second Diesel Emissions Summit, co-organized by Transport Topics in association with the Technology and Maintenance Council's spring meeting, presented the progress so far with technologies to meet the 2007 heavy duty diesel emissions requirements.
      The conclusion? There appears to be a clear path to meeting the averaged 1.2 g per hp.hr NOx and 0.01 g per hp.hr PM that all manufacturers are aiming for between 2007 and 2010. To deal with NOx, most will opt for increased cooled exhaust gas recirculation, while Caterpillar continues to develop its ACERT. But all will need diesel particulate filters to clean the exhaust of particulates. Some are claiming that this will be achieved at no degradation of fuel economy from 2002/2004 engines.
      Absolutely no doubt there will be a cost associated with the 2007 engines. And that brought up the Big Question: What can government do to lessen the costs and help the industry sidestep another pre-buy that would be far more acute than the October 2002 pull-ahead?
      That point was addressed by Gov Bill Graves, chairman of the American Trucking Assns. He said the trucking industry - which hauls 70% of the freight tonnage and accounts for 5% of the gross national product - should get a break on the cost of new trucks after 2007 because of the new engines. Graves said ATA will be lobbying for financial incentives such as tax credits or rollback of federal excise tax to minimize the pre-buy.
      He said that by allowing customers to purchase post '07 trucks with no financial dis-incentive, the object of the clean air regulation will be met in a timely fashion.
      A fast introduction of the cleanest diesel ever and an overhaul of the truck population in an orderly manner gets the latest minimum polluting trucks into the nation's fleet quickly. Without these offsets, the industry will choose either to pre-buy or simply defer purchases after the cutoff date, delaying the implementation of the air quality improvements that will come from the stringent emissions regulation.
      This was underscored by John Stephenson, director of environmental issues for the Government Accounting Office. In speaking about the report on the lessons learned from the 2002/2004 change, he said that 37% of 93,000 engines in the pre-deadline order rush were due to the pre-buy.
      "So there are lessons learned from that example," he said.
      "There are sufficient technology changes to warrant an independent (review) panel," he said, citing one of the report's conclusions and a point of disagreement with fellow panelist Jeff Holmstead, assistant administrator with the office of air quality and radiation at the Environmental Protection Agency. But while they disagreed on that point, Holmstead said the EPA would have no issue with financial incentives, and Stephenson was positively encouraging.
      Stephenson also referred to the report's conclusion that there is a widespread "need to understand the maintenance side as well as the higher first cost and mpg."
      No one is saying what the upcharge for the new engines will be, though the consensus appeared to be that it would be more than the last time around. The figure of $10,000 was mentioned so the price increase will most likely be in the $6,000 to $10,000 range.
      But according to industry analyst Martin Labbe, there are many other issues that will drive costs far higher. He accused the GAO study as being "pretty na•ve."
      Labbe said that there are "direct impacts on the cost of goods sold, fuel cost increases, pre-buy issues. All come into the 2007 engine buy."
      But he added there are indirect societal costs from what he sees as an inevitable production fall-off after the pre-buy. "Indirect economic, regional disruption, cost of hiring, layoff restrictions are all impacted when there is a reduction in production."
      And as if that were not enough, Labbe also spoke to the equipment - including unknown reliability and maintenance costs, operating costs and even the quality of the pre-buy as manufacturers put on second and third shifts to meet demand. Then there are costs associated with operations, he added, citing fuel consumption, unscheduled downtime, scheduled downtime, increased training and enforcement. He was also critical of the GAO for seeking comments from only 10 of the best trucking companies - those who can best absorb the costs.
      In the perfect world, said Labbe, there would be what he called the MiniMax solution: "Minimize my maximum exposure." And the only way to do that would be to provide an incentive that encourages individuals to use the new equipment. "But it will to be a very significant incentive if they are going to put their businesses at risk," Labbe said.
      Jim Winsor's column (page 130) summarizes comments from participants at the fleet panel, much of it to do with experiences of the 2002/2004 engines, which, for the most part have not been good.
      Later sessions at the summit included a lubricants and coolants panel and an engine manufacturers' panel. These suggested that technologies are well in place to bring on board the lubricants to meet equipment that will function to fleets' needs.
      A note of caution was expressed by Ed Eaton of Amalgamate Laboratories. Eaton is president of Amalgatech, which has been testing coolants and has measured significant degradation of conventional ethylene glycol-based coolants. Specifically, the coolant's loss of anticorrosion properties means there is an increasing need to change the fluid rather than keeping it in the system for the life of the truck. And this situation may be aggravated in the next emissions go-around, he said.
      As part of the testing, Amalgatech looked at PDO, an isomer of propylene glycol that is proving more stable in high operating temperatures. His recommendation: Take a serious look at PDO-based coolants - even for today's engines - and certainly for whatever 2007 may hold.
      On that score, the engine manufacturers' panel was keen to go on record that its chosen technology paths would meet not only 2007, but would be the same path each would use to get to 2010.
      In Caterpillar's case, said John Campbell, director of on-highway engine products, that would mean the use of a diesel particulate filter instead of the current oxycat and possibly a NOx adsorber for 2010.
      Cummins' Steve Charlton reiterated that Cummins 2007 engines will look identical to today's with the single addition of a DPF.
      Tim Tindall from Detroit Diesel, Pat Charbonneau from International and Tony Grezler from Volvo all agreed: Add a DPF and we're there already.