New Cummins Diesel Engine Fires Off Fabulous Numbers: Clean Diesel Keeps Getting Cleaner with a Little Help from Silicon Valley

Cummins X15: expanding diesel's possibilities.

A recent story by Michael Coates in the Clean Fleet Report was reprinted on SHIFT, a website devoted to sustainable mobility. The article is about Cummins' efforts toward clean diesel.

The author begins by noting what we've been saying many times. There are seemingly countless articles claiming that the internal combustion engine is dead or dying. While investors are throwing their money behind EVs, there are significant advances taking place with the internal combustion engine. While the world prepares for an electric future, there are great strides being made in the realm of diesel.

Coates writes: "While 2045 may still be more that two decades away, emissions advances in internal combustion engines (ICE) are continuing. A new technology may take the already quite clean (especially compared with engines of just a little more than a decade ago) engines to a level that reduces smog-producing emissions while increasing fuel economy and yet not losing any performance."

The new engine concept is a joint effort by Cummins and a Silicon Valley tech innovator, Tula Technology. The two firms  released a study this past month showing how Tula's diesel Dynamic Skip Fire (dDSF) technology reduced NOx by 74% and CO2 by 5% when applied to a current Cummins engine. The Tula software uses algorithms to fire or deactivate a given cylinder on a cylinder event basis. As a result it is able to control exhaust temps that are critical for optimizing emissions control equipment. It reportedly clicked off a savings of 20% in fuel. 

The specific Cummins diesel was the X15, a state-of-the-art engine used in many Class 8 trucks. dDSF is essentially a micromanager of the engine's cylinders. The engine was first put through the paces on the dyno and then road tested, testing that is ongoing. 

According to the Clean Fleet Report, Cummins is not the first to employ dDSF technology. GM began working with Tula in 2018. The joint effort with Cummins, however, has now been going on for a year or more.

The selection of the X15 was quite intentional. This is Cummins' most fuel efficient diesel engine in the Cummins lineup and possibly the most fuel efficient they've ever produced. The target for this Tula-Cummins team-up is to hit 2024 NOx standards without losing this fuel-efficiency milepost.

For long haul trucking fleets that average 100,000 miles a year, even the slightest gains become significant when added up. This is just one more event in an ongoing series of incremental improvements through the application of technology. We look forward to the road ahead. 

Related Links

Cummins Won't Let Diesel Die
Cummins and Tula Work Together To Advance Diesel Tech
The New Cummins Heavy Duty Diesel