UPDATED: Cummins to "pause" development of 15L natural gas engine, leaving void in marketplace

By: James Menzies
2014-01-17

TORONTO, Ont. -- Cummins has confirmed to US trucking publication Commercial Carrier Journal that it will be putting development of its 15-litre natural gas engine on hold, leaving the market devoid of a 15-litre product after Westport announced last year it was discontinuing production of its own 15L GX engine.

In a conference call last fall, Westport said it was shifting strategies, and would focus on being a technology partner to OEMs rather than building its own loose natural gas engines. It took the final orders for its 15L GX engine in mid-November, meaning customers currently have no 15L natural gas engine available for order. The Cummins ISX15 G was scheduled to enter full production next year.

Canada’s heavy-duty natural gas pioneers, Groupe Robert, Vedder Transport and Bison Transport, expressed mixed reaction at the setback. Robert Penner, executive vice-president and chief operating officer for Bison Transport, said if a 15-litre remains unavailable for an extended time, the company will have to re-evaluate its natural gas trucking program.

“This essentially takes natural gas completely out of the heavy-haul application,” Penner told Trucknews.com. “Our initial strategy was to deploy LNG in applications where our fuel cost per mile was highest, which is our LCV division. Since that is no longer possible, we must re-evaluate to determine what, if any, go-forward plan exists for us.”

Bison has been running 15 LNG-fuelled Peterbilt trucks between Calgary and Edmonton pulling double 53-ft. trailers grossing 63,500 kgs. The company entered into a fuel supply agreement with Shell, which has already opened one LNG fuelling station in Calgary with plans for others in Edmonton and Red Deer, creating an LNG fuelling corridor linking Alberta’s two largest cities.

Fred Zweep, president of Vedder Transportation Group, said a 13-litre engine will fit many of Vedder’s current needs, and that he’s confident the company can extend the life of its 50 existing Westport GX 15L engines until a suitable replacement becomes available.

“Currently we measure the utility of our 50 15-litre HPDI GX engines in two fashions: hourly for the tractors assigned to hourly-measured work and kilometres for equipment operated over the highway,” Zweep said. “As we push over 175,000 hours on the hourly tractors and just over six million kilometres on the over-the-highway tractors, we remain very pleased with the performance of the tractors and look forward to an extended life on these natural gas engines above and beyond what we currently anticipate a diesel engine in the same weight classification to do. Once we run the life of the engines, we have the option to rebuild and keep the truck chassis rolling up and down the highways. Westport continues to support our HPDI GX engines and we are confident Westport will be there to assist us if and when we might run into unforeseen challenges.”

Vedder uses some of its LNG tractors to haul heavy loads of trash from the Lower Mainland of Vancouver to a landfill site in the B.C. Interior and others for regional agricultural work closer to home. For the latter application, a smaller displacement engine may well work, Zweep said.

“At the time our fleet adopted the natural gas 15L HPDI GX engine, the 13L was not available,” Zweep pointed out. “Had it been, 50% of our HPDI order would have been in the 13L category.”

He added: “At this time we don't foresee any impact on the fleet, nor are we planning to make any adjustments to our operating processes…Natural gas is here to stay, the technology is visionary, the technology is durable as our fleet is a testament to the fact it works and once you wrap your head around the reality that the price for natural gas is economically more viable than diesel it shouldn't be difficult for OEMs to recognize the time is right for them to partner with Westport to develop the next evolution of a natural gas engine.”

Groupe Robert, for its part, plans to try smaller displacement natural gas engines until a 15L becomes available.

Yves Maurais, technical director, asset management, purchase and conformity with Robert, told Trucknews.com “I guess we have no choice (but) to go to a smaller 13L or 12L engine if we want to keep improving our fleet and continue our conversion to LNG.”

He said he’s encouraged by some of the product that’s coming online over the next year or two.

“The Volvo 13L engine will be powerful enough for LCVs, but not the (Cummins ISX12 G) 12L which is limited to 400 hp,” Maurais said. “We are anxiously waiting the new Volvo design as we think this will be the next step for us. Meanwhile, we will keep running the GX 15L from Westport in our 125 trucks currently on the road. The new Volvo LNG trucks should be available in 2015, so we're not too far out. We may look at some 12L Cummins engines for short-haul and local LTL operations but nothing is in the works right now.”

A priority for Groupe Robert involves convincing the federal government to consider lifting some of the emissions requirements on LNG-fuelled trucks so that they no longer require SCR and DPF systems.

“We know that LNG trucks produce less GHGs that an equivalent diesel truck; is there really a need to carry all of those systems (DPF, EGR and SCR) when you are using LNG?” Maurais pointed out. “We know it's an uphill battle, but we will keep fighting to promote and facilitate the use of LNG in Canada.”

UPDATE: Here is the official statement from Cummins, courtesy Christy Nycz House, on-highway marketing communications director:

"As a result of market timing uncertainty, Cummins has paused the development of the Cummins ISX15 G natural gas engine. While we believe natural gas power will continue to grow in the North American truck market, the timing of the adoption of natural gas in long haul fleets preferring 15 liter engines is uncertain. We believe the adoption of natural gas in long haul fleets will be paced by a variety of factors beyond the engine and include fuel tank technology and public fueling infrastructure.

Cummins remains committed to the natural gas market.  Heavy-duty fleets desiring natural gas power currently have the option of the Cummins Westport ISX12 G, which is available in a wide range of heavy-duty truck OEMs.

We will re-evaluate the market demand and readiness for the ISX15 G later in 2014. "

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Volvo Exec Leaving Truck Division; Company Launching European Truck in September

Ron Huibers, Volvo Trucks’ president of sales and marketing in North America, is leaving the truck-making unit to become president of Volvo Penta Americas, which makes boat engines.

A replacement for Huibers at Volvo Trucks is expected to be named during the fall, a company spokesman said. Huibers became president of sales and marketing on Jan. 1.

Separately, Volvo said it will launch new versions of its Volvo FH and Volvo FH16 heavy-duty trucks in Europe on Sept. 5. The truck will use a new independent front suspension system.

Volvo Trucks spokesman Brandon Borgna said the new suspension system will not be available on trucks sold in North America.

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Uhh Why Are They Leaving?

On July 6th Nascar announced that beginning with the 2012 season the Nationwide series as well as the truck series would be moving from Lucas Oil Raceway Park over in Clermont Indiana to the Big track, The Indianapolis Motor Speedway. For the life of me I cannot understand why nor can I find an explanation from Nascar that makes sense, they claim that they are doing it to try and revitalize the “Brickyard 400” weekend that has started to slack off in recent years. Does anyone in the upper offices at Nascar realize that there is a really bad economy right now? This is a major dumb move on Nascar’s part, I don’t care if you give away the tickets for free there will still be fans who cannot afford to go to the race because they are broke. You could give me free tickets to Italy right now and all I could do is fly over there and turn right around and come home because I couldn’t afford to even stay one night.

            They think that they are going to fill the stands for a Nationwide race, a truck race and some Grand Am road racing action. This is insane, the 30,000 fans that filled Lucas Oil Raceway Park are not going to fill the big track. At least not in any capacity that would make it look like any kind of successful venture. I can’t wait to see 30,000 people in a stadium that holds 257,000 people next season, which will look like the biggest loser event of the new era of Nascar. There is no camping there; Indianapolis Motor Speedway is in the middle of a Neighbor hood you Dolts! Do they really believe that fans are going to deal with that traffic situation for two races in the lower series? For a short track, Lucas Oil Raceway Park has had very little traffic problems in the past. Any that they had they corrected very quickly. It is short track racing at it’s very best, beating and banging fenders, tempers flaring, drivers and crews going home mad at each other and all. That’s what put the fans in the stands! So now you want to take all that and put it over on a 2.5 mile oval flat track where passing is very difficult and racing tends to get boring. You can’t pass worth a crap there, this is going to fail big time!

            Oh don’t get me wrong now, they will probably have a good turnout the first time that they do it but it won’t be anything close to a sell out. As a matter of fact they will probably have to white wash the whole event so to speak to make it look like it was more of a success that it really was. You know how they do that don’t you? They keep the camera’s of the stands where there are huge gaps in the seats, the television personalities hype the event up so you feel like you should have gone. Stuff like that. They won’t ever tell us how many people actually went through the turnstiles. It wouldn’t surprise me if Nascar and IMS secretly buy up a bunch of empty seats so they can claim more ticket sales than actual fans in the seats. If anybody working at IMS ever reads this I would love to have the turnstile numbers on these events after the fact.

            One other thing about this that may be the only positive in the deal is that a few car owners in the lower series said that finding sponsorship for the big track would be a lot easier than if they were at LORP. I think I heard Kelley Earnhardt and Delana Harvick mentioning this, both during interviews with Dave Moody. I don’t ever remember seeing a KHI or JR Motorsports car running at LORP without sponsorship. Seems to me they were doing just fine weren’t they? No matter how much perfume you put on a pig, it’s still a pig! Eventually the perfume wears off and the stink comes back. Then you have to face reality that you have a smelly pig on your hands and you have to do something about it. I would have loved to been a fly on the wall when the managers of LORP got the news that Nascar was dumping them. I doubt what went around the room was anything that could have been repeated in church. I don’t know what the attendance was for this weekends events over in Clermont but last year the short track drew 40,000 fans when the big track was down over 100,000 after the tire debacle in 2008 along with the fact that the Midwest and northern Indiana and Ohio have been hit hard by what is being called a recession. People are broke in the Mid West Nascar, what do they need to hear to make them understand this? You can’t fix it because it has nothing to do with you, you Idiots. If you have a hole in your bucket and you continually try to put water in it, it will just continue to leak until you fix the hole. If it’s not your bucket then you better stop putting water in it until the owner fixes it.(Wow did that sound country or what?)

            There were a million critics against Nascar coming to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, many saying that it won’t work or it will fail after the new wears off of it. Throw Goodyear’s failure to stick with a proven tire and maybe these critics were right. You can’t fix stupid. Isn’t that what Ron White said? Ever since Brian France took over there has been a bit of that going around.

            I wish them luck. They are going to need it.

Stay safe out there

TW

P.S. As far as the future of Lucas Oil Raceway Park goes, it is owned by the NHRA so it may survive for a drag racing venue but I’ll lay heavy odds that this will be the death of another short track at the hands of the France family.

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