Editor of Light & Medium Truck Magazine Jim Galligan's take on the EGR vs. SCR issue.
The heavyweights in the diesel emission control technology bout continue to slug it out with each other.
Navistar took another jab at its competitors and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with a video purportedly showing how easily selective catalytic reduction emissions-control systems can be bypassed.
The 15-minute video shown to EPA and California Air Resources Board representatives during a July meeting included comments from drivers of a Class 8 Freightliner Cascadia and a Class 5 Ram chassis cab describing how well the trucks ran after replacing the diesel exhaust fluid with water.
SCR-equipped systems are designed to lose operating power and efficiency without DEF. They also are not supposed to start without DEF but, according to the video, both trucks started and ran with water instead of DEF.
In case you have been somewhere else for the past few years, Navistar is the only truck and engine maker not using SCR technology for the 2010 federal diesel emissions standards. Instead, the company has chosen to rely on an advanced version of its exhaust gas recirculation technology.
Navistar charges that EPA changed the ground rules about SCR and by doing so, gave that technology an unfair advantage in the marketplace. Navistar sued EPA to have the agency clarify its guidelines to truck makers using SCR to require more stringent controls to prevent emissions cheating. The meeting with agency representatives was part of the settlement.
SCR users charge that Navistar picked the wrong technology and that its claims are sour grapes, a smokescreen to obscure the fact that the company’s engines do not meet 2010 emissions levels. Advanced EGR gets Navistar’s engines close — but not to — the nitrogen oxides emissions level set by EPA. The company trades credits it accumulated through the years in exchange for producing engines with emissions slightly above the 2010 standards. Navistar executives have said they would meet the actual 2010 level by 2012.
What has angered industry executives has been Navistar’s aggressive marketing tactics denigrating SCR and the companies using it.
“Enough is enough,” Daimler Trucks North America said in a full-page ad that ran in the Aug. 9 Transport Topics, our sister publication, taking Navistar to task for its tactics.
Mud-slinging aside, what does this mean for buyers?
For most truck operators, the issue comes down to economics. Manufacturers have to ensure the consequences for tampering are so economically unattractive that there is no thought to cheating.
As a co-worker noted, if you’re running trucks with SCR and you’re tempted to add water instead of DEF to that $100,000 machine to save a few dollars, that’s your call. Will it void the warranty? If so and something goes kaput, you are stuck with the problem. Plus, it’s illegal.
While the video may be suspect — editing can be done to support any position — it raised the issue of tampering and may prod the EPA to look more closely at SCR systems and the measures each manufacturer has installed to ensure the emissions-control system works.
This bout is far from over.
From Light & Medium Truck Magazine, September 2010 Issue