Cummins is broadening its industry-leading powertrain platforms to include a variety of lower-carbon fuels.
These platforms will use engine blocks and core components that share common architectures and will be optimized for different low-carbon fuel types as the industry’s first unified, fuel-agnostic engines.
“Getting to zero is not a light-switch event. Carbon emissions that we put into the atmosphere today will have a lasting impact. This means anything we can do to start reducing the carbon footprint today is a win for the planet. We need to take action now,” said Srikanth Padmanabhan, President, Cummins Engine Business. “Having a variety of lower carbon options is particularly important considering the variation in duty cycles and operating environments across the many markets we serve. There is no single solution or “magic bullet” that will work for all application types or all end users.”
These new fuel-agnostic engine platforms will have a series of engine versions derived from a common base engine, which means they will share a lot of parts. Each engine’s components below the head gasket will be largely similar, while the components above the head gasket will be different for different fuel types. Each engine version will run on a single, distinct fuel.
This new design philosophy will be implemented across the company’s legendary B, L, and X-Series engine portfolios, which will be available in diesel, natural gas, and hydrogen versions.
“This is a new way of designing and developing lower emission internal combustion powertrains that meet the unique needs of the transportation industry while leveraging the benefits of a common product architecture and footprint where possible,” said Jonathon White, Vice President of Engineering, Engine Business. “This unique technology approach will allow end users to more seamlessly pick the right powertrain for their application with the lowest CO2 impact.”
Engine footprints, diagnoses, and service intervals will all be similar, resulting in increased benefits for both truck OEMs and end users. This means that OEMs will be able to integrate a variety of fuel types across the same truck chassis with ease, and training technicians and retooling service locations will be less expensive, resulting in a lower total cost of ownership for the end user.
These fuel-agnostic platforms are based on lessons learned from millions of diesel and natural gas engines that have been manufactured and are currently in use. Cummins can now extract insights specific to different engine duty cycles and use them to design reliable fuel-agnostic platforms thanks to today’s digital and connected technologies.
“Our customers can be confident in Cummins’ unmatched testing and evaluation process ensuring high-performance products,” said White. “No matter what type of work a fleet does, we’ll have an engine powered by lower carbon fuels with diesel-like performance to get the job done.”
These new products are an important part of Cummins’ strategy to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) and air quality impacts of its products and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 in a way that benefits all stakeholders and is profitable for the company. Cummins’ products and the energy sources that power them must change as a result of this commitment.
Reduce scope 3 absolute lifetime greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from newly sold products by 25% and partner with customers to reduce scope 3 GHG emissions from products in the field by 55 million metric tons are two of the company’s environmental sustainability goals for 2030.
“Cummins is innovating at every level of the company to find new ways of working that use fewer of the world’s resources and the Engine Business is at the center of this exciting innovation,” said Padmanabhan. “We know that our planet cannot wait for the perfect solution to happen. Instead, our approach must be a combined effort of using zero emissions power where it’s available and using cleaner power where it is not. The planet cannot afford for us to hit pause in the meantime.”
