http://www.turbodieselregister.com/f...standards.html

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008...illar-exi.html

http://www.ttpress.com/articles/base...?storyid=19956

 

Cool videos! Thanks for sharing!

 

Since I work in Cummins HD engineering, I'm fairly in tune as to what is going on in the competition (CAT, etc) for the HD truck market.

CAT is exiting the on hwy market-- even earlier than planned. WHY?

Well, the CAY press releases are pure BS, but if you want to hear the whole story, I'll be happy to tell you. But you have to be willing to way back in time.....

Back all the way to that long ago year of 2002-- when on hwy diesels were first getting hit with the EPA regs that were enacted in the clean air act of 1990 (as amended).

CAT had decided that rather than proactively get ahead of the emissions game, they were going to lobby their way out of having to comply. It turns out that this was lobbying money wasted, and CAT couldn't get an exception to the EPA regs no matter how hard they begged.

As a result, CAT had to pay a fine on EVERY SINGLE on-hwy engine they sold after 2002 for almost 2 years. It was almost 2004 before they had an engine that would comply with the '02 emissions requirements. They bled tons of cash.

Worst of all, by the time they DID have a product out there, it was done with obsolete HEUI injector technology. Thus, they were starting with a few strikes against them with a less capable fuel technology (jmo).

So CAT bleeds tons of cash selling non compliant engines, then rushes to market with a cobbled together product that turns out to be junk-- not trying to be harsh, but when the CEO of Freightliner (CAT's largest customer for on-hwy truck engines) basically calls them junk, you know there's trouble. That was essentially the CAT/Freightliner divorce.

So CAT let themselves get so far behind the technology curve that it became simply unjustifiable to to spend all that money to catch up-- especially since the on-hwy market is on the order of only 6% CAT's business.

CAT is a huge (~$40billion) company, and the on-hwy market is just simply too small for them to justify throwing tons of money at. They wised up and realized their earlier strategic misjudgments had forced them to get out of the on-hwy business.




What's REALLY interesting to me is that Navistar/International seem poised to repeat the bad jugement CAT showed earlier as they stubbornly cling to the idea that they can meet 2010 specs without SCR and have a quality product.

SCR is the right solution for 2010 emissions, and since Navistar is now the ONLY (yes, the ONLY) diesel engine manufacturer that WON'T be doing the SCR in 2010, the may be losing tons of sales in the near future-- their engines will no doubt be very problematic 2010 and later.

I can see the Freightliner Cascadia (Cummins powered, of course) basically making the Navistar-powered ProStar extinct. Navistar needs to embrace the SCR and the Cummins solution or they may find themselves financially hurting.

Yes, I am quite biased.

Justin