If you were an attendee at HDMA’s HD Dialogue Program, thank you for your attendance. If you would like to share the presentations given during the day, they are now available on DVD.
Please watch for an order form from us in your e-mail on Wednesday. The DVDs of each presentation were recorded with the stage image and the PowerPoint presentations mixed in sequence. This produced a video program that is the next best thing to watching the presentations live.
Depressed consumer and business spending and other elements of economic softness likely will keep Class 8 sales under 200,000 in 2008, a panel of analysts generally predicted Monday at the Heavy Duty Manufacturers Association’s annual Heavy Duty Dialogue. How far below 200,000 depends on just how weak the U.S. economy is in 2008.
Freight demand will remain sluggish in large part due to decelerating consumer spending owing to inflation, loss of wealth because of declining housing prices, slower employment growth and tighter credit, said Chris Brady, principal of Commercial Motor Vehicle Consulting. Brady expects a gradual upturn in freight in the second half of 2008.
Dee Kapur, president of the truck group, Navistar International Corporation, gave an overview of the state of the global commercial vehicle and global technology considerations for the medium- and heavy-duty vehicle markets at the Heavy Duty Manufacturers Association’s Heavy Duty Dialogue, held in Las Vegas.
Aftermarket executives listened as Kapur discussed how countries, such as Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC countries), are experiencing quick economic growth. In order to develop, these countries must transport many goods, which means rapid growth in the commercial vehicle market.
LAS VEGAS. Dee Kapur, truck group president of International Truck and Engine Corp. reconfirmed the company’s non-SCR position for 2010 emissions compliance in a presentation 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 percent ammonia and 66 percent 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.
The good news is that 95 percent of the time, our economy grows. According to Martin Regalia, vice president and chief economist of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, over the last 100 quarters, there have been only five in which there was no growth in real GDP.
Unfortunately, that probably will not be true in the short-term and it is unlikely that we will get by without a recession.
The global economy has never been bigger, stronger or faster growing than right now, Dr. Thomas PM Barnett, bestselling author and forecaster of global conflict, told attendees at the Heavy Duty Dialogue in Las Vegas. At the same time, poverty worldwide has dropped more in the last 25 years than the previous 500 and the planet has never been more peaceful on a per capita basis.
Countries connected to this global economy, what Barnett calls “core” countries, have stable governments and rising standards of living. “Core” countries include North America, much of South America, the European Union, Russia, China, India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.