Opinion: Engine Makers’ Rivalry Reaches Heated Level

Editorial Director

Transport Topics Publishing Group

This Opinion piece appears in the April 8 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — This year’s version of the Mid-America Trucking Show here cast a bright light on the ongoing fractious debate over which engine technology makes the most sense for fleets that operate heavy-duty trucks in North America.

While it’s not unusual for competitors to praise their products to the sky, it is quite unusual for them to denigrate those of their rivals.

But there is no such reluctance on the part of the two biggest Class 8 truck makers in the U.S. market: Daimler Trucks North America and Navistar Inc.

DTNA, along with its other competitors in the engine market — Paccar Inc., Volvo AB’s North American unit and Cummins Inc. — have chosen selective catalytic reduction to meet the new federal emissions rules that govern 2010-model trucks and later.

Navistar, on the other hand, has chosen to use an advanced version of exhaust gas recirculation — the technology of choice for all the major players in meeting emissions rules from 2002 through 2009 — to accomplish the lower levels permitted by the new standard.

Rarely, if ever, has there been more vitriol exchanged between major trucking suppliers, with the SCR supporters — led by Daimler — flatly predicting that Navistar’s engines are not going to work in the long term.

And Navistar hasn’t been shy about returning the fire, saying its simpler EGR solution will prove to be the winner.

Andreas Renschler, who runs Daimler’s global commercial vehicle unit, which includes DTNA and its Freightliner and Western Star brands, told reporters: “We never gambled” in choosing a technology path. He said SCR is “the most fuel-efficient choice. We made a very severe decision a long time ago and there is no debate any longer that SCR works best.”

Asked if it was possible that both technologies might prove up to the task, Martin Daum, president of DTNA, quickly and emphatically replied: “There will be a loser,” and he made it clear that he was sure it would be Navistar and its International brand.

“Go to Cummins and ask them,” Daum said, referring to the independent engine maker based in Columbus, Ind., that is the largest producer of Class 8 engines in North America. Cummins originally announced it would employ EGR in its 2010 heavy-duty models, but later switched course and adopted SCR.

Navistar had originally intended to offer Cummins engines in addition to its own MaxxForce brand, but dropped Cummins as a supplier after the technology switch.

Daniel Ustian, Navistar’s chairman and president and the chief architect behind the resurgence of the company in recent years, just as emphatically moved to rebut EGR’s critics point by point in a conversation with Transport Topics.

He said Navistar had solved the primary problem with EGR, namely getting rid of the heat produced by the process as it removes pollutants from the exhaust stream.

“If anything,” he said, “I’m worried that the engines might run a little too cool.” He also downplayed the EGR critics who maintain that the engines won’t work properly.

“What is the science behind their claims?” Ustian asked.

James Hebe, Navistar’s senior vice president of sales and marketing, told a gathering of reporters and customers during the trucking show that “we are here to set the record straight on who is the technological leader, and that the naysayers about EGR are wrong.”

Ustian and Navistar’s other managers said EGR was simpler, lighter and well proven, and it won’t require the driver to maintain an adequate supply of the diesel exhaust fluid necessary to make SCR work.

The bad blood between these two companies — which have been vying for the No. 1 sales slot in recent months — goes back to a nasty episode over whose trucks were more aerodynamic and thus more fuel efficient.

Navistar ran an extensive advertising campaign touting the virtues of its models; DTNA then responded with claims that its trucks outperformed Navistar’s in wind-tunnel testing.

Navistar shot back with new claims rebutting DTNA’s, and both sides claimed the other was wrong.

Eventually the furor over aerodynamics died down, but it is now clear that the anger has not.

Most of the supplier community has worked hard to stay out of the crossfire, since they sell to both sides and don’t want to alienate either. “We love all our children equally,” one supplier remarked here.

While it’s impossible to predict who will win this argument, as usual, in the end the market will cast the votes that count.

Transport Topics Publishing Group is owned by American Trucking Associations, which is based in Arlington, Va.