By Frederick Kiel, Staff Reporter
This story appears in the Dec. 19 & 26 print edition of Transport Topics.
This year was the first in which all truck manufacturers had their “vertical integration” model up and running, offering trucks with their own engines — the same way cars are sold.
Mack, Volvo and Daimler had moved earlier to developing their own engines, although until 2010, only Mack did not also offer Cummins engines.
Navistar received engine technology from MAN SE and built its own engine factory in Huntsville, Ala., to produce 11- and 13-liter engines.
And when Cummins reversed course on its 2010 engine emissions technology, Navistar ended its purchase of Cummins engines built after 2009.
Navistar bought the rights to use Caterpillar’s 15-liter engine block to develop an engine to meet 2010 standards, which it began shipping this fall.
Manufacturers put 39,669 Cummins engines into the 116,284 Class 8 vehicles assembled in North America from January to June 2011, for a 34.1% market share, WardsAuto.com said (8-22, p. 1).
That ranking was down from Cummins’ share of 42.6% of the total 2010 market, Ward’s reported.
Detroit Diesel, the Daimler engine maker, was in second place with 30,180 Class 8 engines installed into its own trucks, Ward’s said.
Navistar’s MaxxForce engines placed third with 18,466 units.
Paccar introduced its MX heavy-duty engine in late 2009. During the first six months of 2010, just 130 MX engines were installed, compared with 7,752 units in the first six months of this year, Ward’s said.
Although Navistar’s market share declined in the first 10 months of 2011, compared with the previous year, analysts were unsure if its engine technology was the reason.
Owners registered 49,511 new 15-liters in all of 2010 versus 32,220 13-liters, R.L. Polk & Co. said, adding that 15-liters were more popular than 13-liters in its data going back to 2002.
By emphasizing 13-liter engines, Navistar, Mack, Volvo and Paccar were trying to persuade fleets to choose the smaller engine over the more traditional 15-liter. Fleets and owner-operators registered 40,935 new 13-liter engines in the first six months of 2011, Polk said (12-5, p. 3).
“At this point, the 13-liter has overtaken the 15-liter,” Gary Meteer, Polk’s account director of commercial vehicle solutions, told Transport Topics.
Cummins and Detroit Diesel disputed that statement, both saying that most customers continued to select 15-liter models.
Several major fleets backed up Cummins and DD.
“We have not moved to the 13-liter when we have a choice, because the miles per gallon are about the same, they don’t last as long before needing an overhaul, and they don’t have as good as a residual value,” said Steve Duley, vice president of purchasing at Schneider National Inc.
As for truck sales, manufacturers sold 150,419 new Class 8 vehicles in the United States through November, a 57.7% increase over their 2010 sales through that month, WardsAuto.com reported.
