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TOP DEAD CENTER
The Fun Moves
Downstream

And now the first part of the final two-step tier of off-highway emissions regulations begins. The end is in sight.

When it’s all wrapped up sometime around 2015, the engine design community can sit back and chill after about 20 years of the most extensive engine development the diesel world has ever seen.

The last time I said that out loud, an entire room of engine engineers, laughed, snorted, rolled eyes and made guffawing sounds.

“Um, hello, greenhouse gases. Duh.” And so the never-ending cycle of developments of engines-in-vehicles continues.

But does the focus now shift?

Because frankly, there is not a lot further 2014 and beyond diesel engines can go. They’ve cleaned up about 99% of the stuff diesels emit. How much do you spend for one more percent?

Now comes the rest of the powertrain. Way back when all this started, some of the more forward-looking people in the industry predicted we’d end up with “tuned drivelines.” That morphed into the word “system,” which became so overused that it obscured a key truth. The endgame of this emissions cycle is that engines will eventually have to work very, very closely with what they drive.

Yes (sigh) they will have to operate as a system. A fully tuned, integrated, all-for-one, system. Call it what you will.

The powertrain behind the engine thus becomes the new frontier. The fun and games move downstream.

The holy grail, at least in part, appears to be a driven system that allows the engine to sit and run happily in its most optimum operating range — the always popular sweet-spot.

If the engine is happy, greenhouse gas reduction, which is almost entirely a fuel economy challenge, becomes easier. If the ups and downs of the operating cycle can be at least partially absorbed by whatever it is the engine is driving, so much the better. It’s beyond just more use of electronics or hybrid drives.

Who’s doing this? Who wins? Way too early. Some ideas were seen at Bauma. Many, many more are being discussed in quiet, out-of-the-way meetings all over the industry.

While something is coming along these lines, nobody is 100%, let’s-go-to-production ready to bet on the winner, or winners. Right now.

Like the first days of diesel emissions regulations, a lot of ideas are on the table. One of the interesting things along the engine trail of tiers is that as time went on, the number of truly useable emissions reductions was reduced to a handful from what was a boatload to start with.

There are a lot of very cool powertrain possibilities, ideas, concepts and some hardware around right now. As time goes on and tests are run and data accumulated, the options will shrink.

But in the end, what the 99+% cleaner engines end up driving, and the impact that will have on the machines themselves, will fall totally in the “Wow!” category.