MCE Panels to Examine Expected Rules for Reducing Emissions
This story appears in the Oct. 4 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
One of the features of this year’s American Trucking Associations Management Conference & Exhibition will be a two-part panel on the future of trucks and engines in the face of yet-to-be-proposed rules aimed at reducing carbon emissions.
Scheduled for the conference’s final day, Oct. 19, the panels will feature executives from all the major truck makers and engine manufacturers. The truck panel will be moderated by ATA Chairman Tommy Hodges and the engine panel by Transport Topics Publisher Howard S. Abramson.
“My goal is to moderate that panel in such away so people can see what other companies are doing and take some ideas back to make their companies operate better and more efficiently, cleaner and greener,” Hodges told TT.
Hodges’ panel will focus on the entire truck, and will feature Jack Allen, president of Navistar International Corp.’s North American Truck Group; Susan Alt, vice president for customer and industry relations for Mack Trucks Inc. and Volvo Trucks North America; Martin Daum, CEO of Daimler Trucks North America; and Bill Kozek, general manager of Kenworth and vice president of Paccar.
“My whole idea,” said Hodges, who also is chairman of Titan Transfer Inc., “is to give that guy who’s sitting out there some take-home stuff and . . . [help him find] what’s the smartest thing he could do about spec’ing his truck.”
Abramson’s panel, which will focus on engines, will feature Daum and Allen, as well as Craig Brewster, assistant vice president of Paccar; Steve Charlton, chief technical officer, Cummins Inc.; and Tony Greszler, vice president of government and industry relations of Volvo Powertrain North America.
“What I intend to ask them is, ‘Here we are in 2010. Everyone seems pretty sure that carbon is the next thing EPA is intending to focus on. What are you doing to prepare?’ ” Abramson said.
Abramson added that the panelists’ positions with the leading manufacturers of heavy-duty engines will allow them to provide valuable insight to fleet executives about the direction the entire supplier industry is taking.
“Who better to ask than the people who produce 100% of the heavy-duty engines in America and a tremendous chunk of all the heavy-duty engines in the world?” he said.
Abramson, fresh off a trip to the International Commercial Vehicles Motor Show in Hanover, Germany, said that in Europe, fleets and regulators are “definitely” having discussions about carbon emissions and in general “the emissions regulations worldwide are getting closer and closer.”
The panels are being sponsored by engine maker Cummins Inc.
Earlier this year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, at the direction of President Obama, began the process of writing the first-ever carbon emissions standards for large trucks.
Those administration proposals for those standards are expected to be released later this year.
