Told you so . . .

In the unfolding saga, Navistar says it is to abandon its EGR-only emissions solution to meet EPA 2010. It will adopt the same selective catalytic reduction (SCR) technology to handle NOx as its competitors. Incoming president of Truck and Engines Troy Clarke said in a July analysts’ call that the company wouldn’t be making an about-face but simply going forwards. “This announcement is not about going back, it's not about backing up, it's about going forward," Troy Clarke Navistar's president of Truck and Engine said in a brief call on the morning of July 6.

Despite wrapping it in a new tech term: In Cylinder Technology Plus, it is an about-face of the first kind, and there are so many ramifications that it’s difficult to know where to start.

From a personal standpoint, I will start with a New York analysts meeting where I was invited to speak in late 2010. There I was asked to comment on the truck engines emissions picture at that moment and the prospects for truck and engine sales. It fast became an International Engine bashing session and ultimately led to my losing my job at Heavy Duty Trucking as my remarks ticked off Navistar management so severely. They accused me of trying to manipulate Navistar stock price.

As it turns out, the company didn’t need my help. Its value, precisely because senior management blindly pursued Advanced EGR (A-EGR) as its preferred emissions solution has seen its value halved since.