GREENSBORO, N.C. — Mack Trucks and Volvo Trucks North America recently had their diesel engines certified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board to meet the near-zero emissions standards which take effect in January 2010.

The Mack MP7 and MP8 engines are now officially recognized to meet the strict new diesel emissions standards, while Volvo’s D11 and D13 engines have been certified. All the engines have been fully certified to meet EPA’s stringent standards without the use of emissions credits.

The truck and engine makers are the first truck manufacturers to have heavy-duty diesel engines certified for 2010 by both EPA and CARB.

“Achieving certification involved many dedicated employees working for many years,” said Kevin Flaherty, Mack senior vice-president. “It’s critical that our MP engines continue to deliver the power, performance, durability and reliability for which they are known. Our customers now not only have the cleanest engines in the world, they also have the performance they expect from Mack.”

“EPA’s certification of these engines is a crucial milestone in Volvo’s journey to producing the cleanest diesel engines in the world,” added Scott Kress, senior vice-president of sales and marketing. “We are already building EPA’10 trucks and are fully on track for large-scale production next year, which will help make the air cleaner, use fuel more efficiently and save money for our customers.”

This step forward by the OEMs was driven by the use of selective catalytic reduction (SCR) to bring nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions down to EPA’10 levels. Testing of the SCR engines in North America was conducted in more than 50 customer vehicles, for more than two years, accumulating 5 million miles of field testing.

The SCR technology also essentially eliminates active regenerations of the diesel particulate filter (DPF) to save even more fuel and further reduce operating costs.

SCR enabled also allowed the manufacturers to continue with their current engine platforms without major modifications to the engines or cooling systems. SCR permitted engineers to retune the engines for additional power, lower heat rejection and reduced fuel consumption.

“The new Mack engines are so clean that in some areas, the exhaust leaving our trucks will be cleaner than the air going in,” Flaherty noted. “Our EPA’10 engines also have significantly improved fuel economy. Using less fuel shrinks the trucks’ carbon footprint, reduces operating costs for customers and cuts the need for imported oil.”