At the time of launch, back in 2009, Euro 5 appeared to be technical wizardry. Attach some equipment to the exhaust of a truck engine and the emissions are cleaned up.
Using either EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) or SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) – or a combination of both to achieve these new standards, truck operators were nervous of the technology when it first appeared at Euro 4. With the benefit of hindsight and with Euro 6 trucks now the norm on the UK’s roads, Euro 5 technology appears relatively straightforward.
Read More about Euro 5
The Euro 5 standard was the only one that was adopted early by both the truck manufacturers and the operators alike. The technology was ready and available for the truck manufacturers by more or less tuning a Euro 4 truck. The expense of fitting an EGR or SCR system was already part of Euro 4 – the Euro 5 standard just made them more effective. Each truck maker thought they were stealing a march on the competition by offering customers Euro 5 instead of Euro 4 trucks. All this did (which was a good thing) was to get operators into the more environmentally sound trucks sooner.
Later there were enhancements to the standard – an EEV (Enhanced Environmentally friendly Vehicle) truck is the equivalent of Euro 5 plus… The same EGR and SCR (Adblue) technology was used to clean up the emissions for the EEV trucks as for Euro 4 and 5.
MAN Truck & Bus explain the EEV Standard in more detail:
