LOOKING AHEAD

January 4, 2007 Vol. 3, No. 1

First off, happy new year!

So, it seems we’ve just launched ourselves into 2007. The year that took on a size and shape all its own long before it actually arrived, as we contemplated the challenges of the Environmental Protection Agency’s next emissions demands. Well, some of us ‘contemplated’ but engineers worked feverishly – from about 2002 – on the technology of
it all. Not simple stuff.

Truck makers consulted astrologers and tea-leaf readers and probably fortune tellers on the streets of Macau as they tried to plot a business course that wouldn’t bankrupt them in the first few months of this year. They still don’t know how things will flow. Layoffs have
already occurred, some of them substantial, and some of them have not yet been announced. Not easy there either.

And that’s not to mention the folks who own and operate the trucks and engines that are the subjects of all this kafuffle. Will you buy an ’07 engine or won’t you? How long can you avoid it? I don’t think anyone is too terribly worried about reliability or fuel economy,
because the technologies employed in these new engines aren’t – with a couple of exceptions – radically different from what we saw in 2002/04. But who wants to spend an
extra $10,000 per truck?

As far as I can tell, though nobody will own up to it on the record, you might actually be able to buy a new truck with an ’07 engine for less than you would have paid for a 2006 model six months ago. It’s about keeping the factories working, I suppose. Don’t count on getting
such a deal, by the way, but I know it’s happened.

And now, of course, we have 2010 to look forward to.