Detroit Diesel is putting a significant amount of testing and development effort into a unique 1,850-power rating for the Series 60 heavy-duty diesel engine. The engine will be fully compliant with the Australia's emissions
certification standards, which take effect Jan. 1, 2008.
This is the first time Detroit Diesel has offered such a tailored product for the Australian market.
The development program for the new engine includes building a number of test trucks to be delivered to select customers in the Australian market for reliability growth testing. However, the 1,850 rating program leverages all of the testing and engineering activities being conducted to support the EPA '07 launch of the Series 60 in the NAFTA market. By start of production of the NAFTA version of the Series 60, Detroit Diesel expects to have accumulated 14 million test miles through reliability growth testing and a comprehensive customer demonstration program.
"Given the heavier loads that are required to haul freight across Australia, we knew we had to focus on introducing an 1,850 pounds-foot of torque for Series 60 customers in this demanding market," said Kevin Dennis, manager, International On-Highway Sales. "And it made a lot of sense to leverage the extensive work being put into the EPA '07 program for this program too, which is exactly what we are doing. Additionally, we are looking at running up more than 600,000 miles of testing in the Australian market alone over the next 12 months as we work to bring the ADR 80.1-compliant Series 60 to these customers.”