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Fleets Weigh Competing Technologies as New Emission Standards Loom
This story appears in the Feb. 4 print edition of Transport Topics.
Truck buyers for some of the nation鈥檚 largest fleets are already contemplating their choices for the January 2010 generation of heavy-duty truck engines. Their challenge is matching the original equipment manufacturers they like with one of the two main technologies upon which the OEMs will rely.
Except for products from Caterpillar Inc., all engine OEMs use exhaust gas recirculation to meet the 2007 federal regulations to limit nitrogen oxides and particulate matter. For the even-tighter 2010 standards, the choice will be between a new generation of EGR and selective catalytic reduction, an approach that started in Europe and uses the nitrogen-based organic compound urea in the aftertreatment process.
In recent interviews with Transport Topics, fleet buying executives were unanimous in their eagerness to get test vehicles to drive.
Bestway Express, a dedicated contract carrier from Vincennes, Ind., summarizes the dilemmas involved. Company President Shepard Dunn said:
鈥淥ur main provider of trucks and engines, Volvo [Trucks North America], has a solution, but it鈥檚 based on the European model 鈥 urea spray. Evidently, it does fine in Europe, but there is no network for distri-bution of this product in the United States. So, we鈥檙e not sure of what they are planning on, if they cannot resolve that major issue.
鈥淥ur approach in the past was to dodge the bullet. Let the big guys take the financial hits on being the guinea pigs,鈥 said Dunn. 鈥淢y guess would be the same approach for 2010, that is, pre-buy,鈥 he said, referring to the practice of buying lots of trucks ahead of a regulatory change and then hardly at all immediately afterward.
Con-way Inc. walks both sides of trucking鈥檚 great divide. Con-way Freight is the nation鈥檚 third-largest less-than-truckload carrier, and Con-way Truckload, based on what was Contract Freighters Inc., is also a substantial carrier.
In simultaneous telephone interviews, Mike Grima, director of fleets for Con-way Freight, and Bruce Stockton, vice president of maintenance and asset management for Con-way Truckload, said they like sharing testing notes, but they are headed in opposite directions, come 2010.
鈥淭he truckload and LTL worlds are completely different animals,鈥 said Grima. 鈥淲e have a longer life cycle on our trucks. Our linehaul tractors are all Class 8, but we use some Class 7 in pickup and delivery. Some of our heavy-duty vehicles that do both applications can run 24 hours a day.鈥
The LTL division also has built and relies upon Con-way鈥檚 network of more than 400 North American truck terminals. All of Grima鈥檚 trucks return to a terminal at the end of every shift, whereas Stockton鈥檚 truckload vehicles return far less often.
鈥淚n a truckload fleet, the less complex an engine is, the better it is. If we have the option not to select SCR, we would like to do that,鈥 said Stockton.
Stockton, who came to Con-way from CFI, said his division will take possession this year of 140 Kenworth Trucks powered by Cummins ISX engines. He said he is also very interested in Freightliner Trucks鈥 new Cascadia model but hopes there is a way to get it with EGR rather than SCR.
Freightliner is the North American flagship of Daimler Trucks, the world鈥檚 largest truck maker and a leading proponent of SCR.
Grima said he will be able to maintain his association with Sterling Trucks, also a Daimler brand, which uses Detroit Diesel Corp. engines. While SCR is new in North America and is more complicated than EGR, early reports say its advantage will be that it gets better mileage.
鈥淲e did do a pre-buy in 2006 to avoid 2007s, but if what we鈥檝e heard about fuel and SCR is true, we won鈥檛 do a pre-buy in 2009 to avoid 2010s. We鈥檝e been hearing there鈥檚 a 5% increase in mileage, and we want that,鈥 said Grima. He added that Con-way managers are already at work figuring out how to store urea at their terminals.
Although generally optimistic about SCR, Grima was quick to acknowledge a substantial list of challenges that accompany the new system.
鈥淭wo-thirds of the urea solution will be water, so the tank that holds it will need to be heated,鈥 he said. But Grima said he also thinks Daimler engineers from Germany and Volvo engineers from Sweden should know how to operate in the cold.
Yet, he does not anticipate that SCR will sweep the nation in a month or even a year.
鈥淲hat will be the aggregate population of SCR-equipped trucks in 2010? It might not be anything you would see on the radar screen, compared with 2020. Demand for urea will be small at the outset. I think this will be more of a ramp-up process rather than a sudden switch to 鈥榦n,鈥 鈥 Grima said.
FedEx Freight is an even larger LTL than Con-way, second only in size to YRC Worldwide, and Dennis Beal, vice
president of physical assets, came to the opposite conclusion. His Memphis, Tenn., carrier did not pre-buy in 2006 and is very much interested in EGR rather than SCR.
鈥淲e鈥檇 prefer not to deal with SCR and liquid urea,鈥 Beal said, citing concerns over freezing and the stuff鈥檚 availability.
鈥淏ased on what we know today, we鈥檒l go with a non-SCR approach. But what will this be like in two or three years? We don鈥檛 know.鈥
Beal manages 15,000 tractors for FedEx鈥檚 regional and longhaul LTL divisions. Even though Volvo is also a leading proponent of SCR, Beal said he is inclined toward Kenworth and Volvo trucks that will be spec鈥檈d with Cummins鈥 EGR engines. Beal cautioned that his current observations are not final decisions.
鈥淚t鈥檚 still very early in the process. It鈥檚 not too early to be thinking about it, but we really don鈥檛 know now.鈥
Beal said there are several reasons FedEx shuns pre-buys, and one of them is that actual operations can differ from worries voiced early in the production process.
Comparing the more than 500 tractors FedEx Freight bought in 2007 with early models from the 2002-06 generation of tractors, Beal said his mileage is 5% to 6% better.
鈥淲e were surprised; we weren鈥檛 expecting that,鈥 he said.
鈥淲e鈥檒l get the trucks we need, when we need them. This also helps us do right by the environment.鈥 If the carrier were to pre-buy, he said, either FedEx would have unused trucks sitting or he would have to sell good equipment very early, and both of those options are unpalatable.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 want that,鈥 he said.
Beal said the company buys 1,000 to 1,500 trucks a year, and sometimes more if the economy is booming. Given the current state of affairs, though, buying more trucks is not the case this year.
Beal said he likes this approach because he鈥檒l be ahead of the curve on learning the subtleties of the new engines, compared with carriers that pre-buy.
鈥淓very group of engines has a personality, almost. This serves us well.鈥
He also said his company is inclined to 鈥渟tick with the manufacturers we know and with whom we are well acquainted, but we鈥檒l test all of them.鈥
The smaller number of LTL carriers have some of the best-known names in the industry, but the strong majority of trucking companies are truckload carriers, where obsessing about tractors is a way of life.
Steve Duley, vice president of purchasing for Schneider National, Green Bay, Wis., has spent much of this decade worrying about what happens to engines when federal regulations change.
鈥淭he last two regulatory changes [October 2002 and January 2007] have been problems 鈥 not just in terms of cost but also the reliability of the engines.
鈥淲e鈥檝e thought quite a bit about this already and met with our suppliers. We鈥檝e been asking, 鈥榃hat are our options, and what has been the progress for 2010?鈥 鈥 said Duley.
鈥淲e鈥檇 like not to use SCR but would use it if there is a high cost associated with EGR. We鈥檝e made no final decision yet, and we hope to get a few trucks in so we can validate what has been said. We鈥檒l run some of each type [SCR and EGR] before buying in large quantities.鈥
Marty Fletcher, director of equipment research and development for U.S. Xpress Enterprises, said that, while engines are tremendously important, they are just the beginning of the issue for the Chattanooga, Tenn., carrier.
鈥淲e鈥檙e having two test units built that should be ready in mid-January, and we鈥檒l consider more during the year,鈥 he said about the Detroit Diesel Corp. 15-liter DD15 models without SCR he is expecting.
鈥淭his will give us some good data on durability and reliability,鈥 Fletcher said. 鈥淲hen you get serious downtime on new components, that is what causes trouble.鈥
鈥淭his means we鈥檒l be getting test trucks almost two years in advance of the changeover,鈥 he said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 good notice, but we really do need at least a full 18 months of operations to test an engine. You need to have both the tractor and the engine broken in.鈥
Beyond the engine, a truck needs break-in time for the driveline, wheel-ends and other systems because a new truck is a stiff truck, Fletcher said. 鈥淥nce you get past 70,000 miles, you鈥檒l see some mileage improvements.鈥
鈥淵ou have to reduce the rolling resistance from the initial point. You also want to go through at least 12 months from a climactic view, too,鈥 he said, explaining that the change in seasons also affects performance.
In addition to the DD15s, Fletcher said he will test Volvo tractors, some with engines from Cummins and others from Volvo Powertrain. Leaving no stones unturned, he also said U.S. Xpress Enterprises will be looking into Kenworths and Peterbilts from Paccar Inc. and International鈥檚 ProStar model.
鈥淲e鈥檙e searching for the best partners now, and then we want to narrow it eventually to two OEMs. If Cummins can do it [meet the 2010 EPA emission standards] without requiring additional substances, meaning urea 鈥 if you don鈥檛 have to fool with that, then it would seem like a positive thing to me.
鈥淏ut if SCR gets you more fuel efficiency, that might be a better trade-off,鈥 Fletcher said, showing what his agenda will look like in coming months.
Duley said Schneider once again will 鈥減re-buy but not to the same degree as with the 鈥07 change. We won鈥檛 do it as heavily in 鈥08, until we see a recovery in freight. We鈥檒l buy our normal 1,500 to 2,000 trucks a year in 2008 and 鈥09.
鈥淲e鈥檒l keep our fleet age reasonable and reduce it by the end of 2009 with a mild pre-buy. We鈥檇 prefer not to have these large cyclical fluctuations, but we鈥檙e concerned with reliability and costs. While a steady state of purchases would be better, we鈥檙e glad that we did those pre-buys.鈥
Duley said he does not consider this preparation for 2010 to be a battle between motor carriers and OEMs.
鈥淢anufacturers have done an excellent job on this, but there are a lot of issues going on here,鈥 he said.
Looking back at 2002, he said, 鈥淎 lot of components had to change, and there was a substantial amount of retrofitting. The predictions then were for a fuel-economy loss of 3% to 4%, and that鈥檚 precisely where we came in.鈥
Staying within the 2002-2006 generation of tractors, Duley said, the December 2006 trucks got 3% less mileage than did the September 2002 models, the last ones before the regulatory changeover that year.
鈥淎lso, the maintenance costs have been significantly higher. It costs 20% to 30% more to maintain them, compared with the pre-2002 vehicles.鈥
Bestway鈥檚 Dunn said, 鈥淭hree to four years ago, I joked that, with the 2010 emission standards being so difficult to hit, how were the OEMs even going to figure out how to get an engine to run, much less do it efficiently and within EPA standards? Here we are with 2010 engines now on the horizon 鈥 and still asking the same questions.
鈥淚 certainly hope the OEMs will get this figured out sooner rather than later, but we鈥檒l all have to wait and see, won鈥檛 we?鈥
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