Navistar announced it now offers the Cummins ISB 6.7-liter engine with Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) emissions aftertreatment for its IC Bus CE Series school buses.
For the commercial trucking market, the engine will be offered with the company’s International DuraStar trucks.
The Cummins ISB marks Navistar’s first medium-duty vehicle engine with SCR aftertreatment technology. Officials said the engine is the “next critical piece” the company has to offer in the medium-duty market to answer customer demand, and follows the success the engine has had in the heavy-duty market since being introduced earlier this year.
Navistar will continue to offer Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR)-only versions of its midrange engines utilizing existing medium-duty emissions credits, which officials said the company expects to last at least through next year. Still, Bill Kozek, Navistar’s president of Navistar’s North American Truck and Parts division, said the decision to offer the Cummins ISB was not based solely on credits.
“It was time to give our medium-duty truck and bus customers a choice, and we thought the timing was perfect,” Kozek noted during a media briefing, adding that relatively minimal re-engineering work was performed to introduce the ISB engine.
The company said it is already taking orders for buses and trucks powered by the Cummins ISB. Regular production for CE Series school buses is scheduled for late January 2014. Initial truck builds will begin later this month, and regular production is slated for December. Shortly thereafter, officials said, customers should expect to see some demos at dealerships.
“The ISB will complement our existing engine offerings and will be a catalyst as we look to improve our medium-duty truck and bus business in 2014 and beyond,” said Jack Allen, Navistar executive vice president and chief operating officer.
Kozek added: “Customers seeking commonality in their engine line-up have expressed significant interest in combining the Cummins ISB engine with our chassis, and we anticipate strong demand and orders as a result.”
Officials said the next steps of its comprehensive midrange SCR engine strategy would be announced at a later date.
Navistar is not new to the Cummins ISB as the Blue Diamond joint venture with Ford has used the engine since 2010. In unrelated news, last year Navistar announced it will offer the Cummins ISL-G natural gas engine in the International TranStar and WorkStar trucks.
Cummins has more than 10 million ISB engine units built to date.
