WARRENVILLE, Ill. — Navistar International says it is receiving strong interest in its EPA2010-compliant trucks and has delivered more than 7,000 units to date.

“Full production of our EPA2010 products has been underway since June and we’ve shipped more than 7,000 of these units in total, and more than 4,700 in the past month,” said Jack Allen, president of Navistar’s North American truck group. “We’re now well into delivery mode and as stated previously, we are on track to deliver more than 17,000 total vehicles to US and Canadian customers by the end of the quarter.”

The company says it is building more than 380 engines per day, 85 of which are MaxxForce 13s. It also says it has received more than 23,000 orders for 2010 vehicles, including buses but not including long-term, multi-year contracts.

“Consistent with our ‘buy-early, buy-late’ strategy and confirmed by a number of pending deals in the works, we expect a significant increase in orders from October through December as fleets continue moving to 13-litre power and our MaxxForce Advanced EGR engine continues to resonate with customers,” Allen added.

Navistar says it has implemented a “build and hold” quality control initiative which sees the company build trucks and then hold them until extensive field testing has been completed.

“As we cycle through our build-and-hold processes, we’ll continue to deliver thousands of vehicles in the weeks ahead as we draw down inventory of completed 2010 vehicles at our manufacturing plants,” Allen added. “Our 2010 trucks are making their way into service and we’re getting great feedback on their performance and fuel economy.”

Navistar officials also said they are successfully convincing customer to downsize to 13-litre engines where applicable.

“We’ve been successful shifting the focus from solely a displacement preference to where we’re demonstrating to customers how they can get the same or better performance in horsepower and torque from our lower displacement, lighter weight and more fuel efficient MaxxForce 13,” Allen said. “In some limited applications, there will continue to be customers that require 15-litre power and we’ll provide that as we introduce our MaxxForce 15, which is currently running in six fleets. However, as we’re seeing, and arguably many of our competitors are seeing as well, many fleets can’t deny the economic advantages of a lower displacement engine that delivers the same power, performance and durability characteristics required for their operations.”