Kapur nixes SCR

Jan. 22, 2008
LAS VEGAS. Dee Kapur, truck group president of International Truck and Engine Corp. reconfirmed the company’s non-SCR position for 2010 emissions compliance

LAS VEGAS. Dee Kapur, truck group president of International Truck and Engine Corp. reconfirmed the company’s non-SCR position for 2010 emissions compliance yesterday in a presentation here at the 2008 HDMA Heavy Duty Dialogue. “We don’t like it,” Kapur told his audience, calling the solution a “marooned technology” and a stopgap measure only.

In 2007, International announced its decision to pursue a non-SCR path to achieving the tougher 2010 limit on oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions in all International MaxxForce engines. SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) uses a mixture of 34% ammonia and 66% water. Although SCR has been in use in parts of Europe for some time, Kapur noted that ammonia is toxic, there is currently no SCR distribution network in the U.S., nor any program in place to regulate its proper use after the 2010 standard goes into effect. Better solutions will emerge and by 2012 to 2015 SCR will become a “marooned technology,” he said.

Kapur also discussed the changing global truck market, noting that, “There is only so much growth in North America now and many of you know it.” It is “essential” to move toward globalization, he said, noting that the highest long-term GDP forecasts are for China and India and the lowest are for the U.S. and Japan.

International is focusing on India, Kapur said, where there are lots of development opportunities, particularly in the areas of improving the driver environment, road and vehicle safety, and the capacity and speed of the infrastructure. “Thirty million people per year are moving into the middle class in India,” he noted. “International is going back to India. We were there from 1963 to 1985 as International Harvester with Mahindra & Mahindra.”
Mahindra International will be the name of the new joint venture company and the brand name of the trucks built for India, as well.

Kapur also called upon the industry to work together to drive acceptance of U.S. standards in other parts of the world to help create a “level playing field,” in the global marketplace. “We need a coordinated effort to drive acceptance of U.S. standards,” he said.

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About the Author

Wendy Leavitt

Wendy Leavitt joined Fleet Owner in 1998 after serving as editor-in-chief of Trucking Technology magazine for four years.

She began her career in the trucking industry at Kenworth Truck Company in Kirkland, WA where she spent 16 years—the first five years as safety and compliance manager in the engineering department and more than a decade as the company’s manager of advertising and public relations. She has also worked as a book editor, guided authors through the self-publishing process and operated her own marketing and public relations business.

Wendy has a Masters Degree in English and Art History from Western Washington University, where, as a graduate student, she also taught writing.  

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