A shortage of light- and medium-duty diesel trucks may be looming as chassis manufacturers modify production dates in response to new 2010 emissions regulations.
General Motors in particular already has stopped taking orders for some models and will not produce its new diesel models until May.
Diesel engines built after December 31 must meet the more stringent Environmental Protection agency regulations, which will require new technology that add weight, cost, and complexity to new diesel-powered trucks.
“We have had a surge of orders for diesel-powered vans,” GM’s Dan Tigges, full-size truck product manager, said at the recent Truck Product Conference sponsored by the National Truck Equipment Association. “Because of that, we cut off orders for diesel vans last week. We will build those trucks, probably until early December. After that, we will have a five-month dark period on diesel engines—January through May. After May 24, we will start production with the new diesel engine. These will be 2010 trucks. We will come out with 2011 model year trucks in late August.”
The story is much the same for pickups and chassis cabs.
“We anticipate cutting off orders for full-size pickups in late November,” Tigges said. “We will continue to build trucks into the first quarter of 2010 using engines that are still in the pipeline. In January-February, we will be done producing regular cabs and crew cabs. We will then have a three-month dark period during which we will produce no diesel-powered work trucks. We will be back in business with the new engines in May 2010 for regular and crew-cab models.”
Those trucks will be 2011 models.
Downtime for heavy-duty extended-cab models will be even longer. These models have been produced at the GM assembly plant in Pontiac, Michigan. However, the company is closing that plant October 1 and will be moving production to Fort Wayne, Indiana.
“That will impact production during the last quarter of the year,” Tigges said. “We will be back in production of gas models in January. But heavy-duty extended cab pickups with diesels will not be back in the market until July of next year, and the extended cab chassis cab will not be coming back into production.”
For full-size vans, production of 2010 models already is in full swing, Tigges said. Production of gasoline-powered models is expected to run without interruption throughout the model year.