New Truck Emissions Standards Leave Manufacturers Wondering

Truck manufacturers are doing some head scratching over new EPA and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) plans
to decrease fuel consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions from medium- and heavy-duty vehicles manufactured from 2014 to 2018. The EPA estimates payback periods on such vehicles to be one to two years, with a net savings over these trucks’ lifespans. Trailers, not included in this legislation, are slated for inclusion in future guidelines.

The regulations will impact CO2 emissions and fuel consumption of vocational vehicles, among others. Fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions will be measured using gram/ton-mile and gallon/1,000-ton-mile measurements.

An EPA report states that vehicle manufacturers are afforded “flexibilities,” which include “an engine averaging, banking, and trading (ABT) program.” In addition, the EPA will allow manufacturers to use CO2 credits to offset CH4 or N2O emissions.

This is where the objections begin.

Rolf Lockwood, a trucking-industry expert, describes these flexibilities incredulously. He questions “the seemingly reckless assumption by Washington that we’ll get there somehow…I do believe we’ll get there, but at what cost? Especially, at what cost to the little guys of trucking?”

An absence of smart regulation, he explains, could mean that it will become harder to find the right truck for the job, and that vocational vehicles will become increasingly expensive as manufacturers struggle to meet the needs of widely varying jobs.

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“What happens when the wrong truck is shoehorned into a given job? Efficiency is almost always lost. Durability and maybe even safety, are compromised too,” Lockwood writes.

As always, we’ll have to wait and see how this unfolds. It might mean cleaner air and lower fuel costs, or it could result in expensive, poorly designed new trucks that leave signshop owners scrambling to keep old vehicles on the road as long as possible.