In November 2018, the EPA announced the need to update nitrogen oxide emissions standards in heavy-duty trucks with its Cleaner Trucks Initiative.
According to the initiative’s overview found at epa.gov, heavy-duty vehicles are the largest contributor to mobile source emissions of nitrogen oxide, and they are expected to be one of the largest mobile source contributors to ozone going into 2025. That means even though from 2007 to 2017 nitrogen oxide emissions in the U.S. dropped by more than 40%, there is still more work to be done.
As a result, we’re starting to see some really interesting technologies sprout up focused on both lowering emissions and bettering fuel economy. One of these is called Cylinder Deactivation Technology, developed by Jacobs Vehicle Systems along with some of their OEM partners.