In July, American powertrain manufacturer, Cummins Inc, opened a new test facility at its engine plant in Darlington in the northeast of England, with the attendance of T&BB and other members of the trade press. The company has carried out engine testing at Darlington for many years, but the new facility represents a definitive change in approach to product development and evaluation. While the older test cells are solely designed to assess engines, the new facility can accommodate an entire truck or bus for whole vehicle testing. Moreover, the building which houses the new facility is specifically made to safely test gas and hydrogen combustion vehicles.

The company showcased a variety of powertrain systems, including natural gas-powered engines, and electric propulsion (e-propulsion) systems.

The company has been testing a hydrogen-powered engine in a Mercedes-Benz Unimog with the long-term aim of developing, at scale, hydrogen combustion engines for heavy-duty and specialised vehicles.

The new facility, which is already in use, incorporates a test chamber and engine dynamometers with nominal capacities of 900 kilowatts and 4,000 Nm.

Under the themes of “energy transition and sustainable mobility”, the European public transport industry met to demonstrate its new sustainable products/technologies as the sector looks to rapidly decarbonise to meet climate pledges outlined in the European Green Deal.

The truck engines will be fitted with Westport’s high-pressure direct injection (HPDI) system, using compression-ignition to deliver power and range comparable to a conventional diesel.

The first ‘B6.7H’ hydrogen engines rolled off the production line at Jamshedpur in March and are now being integrated in Tata trucks.

Based on the heavy-duty ‘TGX’ range, the ‘hTGX’ will be aimed at customers looking to decarbonise their operations in demanding applications such as construction, logging, and tanker transport.

Delegates of Hydrogen UK’s annual conference, held at the National Conference Centre in Birmingham on 12 March, left the event with no doubts about the future of the burgeoning hydrogen economy. Opening the conference, Clare Jackson, CEO of Hydrogen UK, declared that “net zero is not possible without hydrogen”. The burning question is, will the UK have any significant part in its development?

Starting later this year, with a proposed finish date of 2029, the two doctoral students will aid Volvo in developing the internal combustion engine with hydrogen as a fuel.

It appears that the upgrades at the plant are meant to prepare it for the eventual development of Cummins’ fuel-agnostic engine platform, a series of engines designed to run on fuels such as natural gas and hydrogen and derived from a common base engine.

The prototype truck, which hauled a full trailer in the Swedish town of Älmhult, was installed with Westport’s ‘H2 HPDI’, a high-pressure direct injection system which allows an internal combustion engine to run on hydrogen.