Was talking with an old friend this week who works for CMI.
His current project for the last 3 and few more further years is so frustratingly related.
Apparently back in 2020 time frame Dodge/Ram was busted for diesel emission violations.
It was basically the VW scam, a break-in ECM tune that would pass emissions and then at some point restore power.
The wild part is Dodge (Im going to use dodge generically for Dodge/Ram/Solantis for the reminder of this post) actually provides, manufacturers and programs the ECM for the Dodge Cummins trucks. Well the EPA sued/fined Dodge, but this was post bailout '20 and dodge was broke. So the judgement flowed down to Cummins. The legal hang up was on paper Cummnis approved the ECM's produced for the dodge trucks. His words CMi rubber stamped the program - but when things got sideways it turned out when Dodge supplied CMI with the tune file they omitted entirely the entire exhaust control section as it was "unchanged"
Anyway - since Dodge was broke Cummins was found liable for these emission violations.
The resultant fine was for every truck produced during the affected period, a math equation was calculated and a total emission impact in tons of emission gas was produced. As reparation Cummins had to agree to build, donate, produce, upfit and deliver 95L locomotive engines - engines in the sense of train cars not ICE - yes Cummins is building trains now. To equal the harmful emissions and offset the carbon impact. Cummins internally estimated that 95% of owners would voluntarily agree to return to the dealer and have their engines de-tuned. This math worked out to (23) 95L locomotive engines. So for the past 3 years he has been over seeing this program and working with rail manufacturers to build these 23 train engine cars. That Cummins has to commission and build and deliver...surprise of all surprises only 31% of owners have agreed to come in and have their engines detuned. As a result the number has swelled to over 50 engines they now have to build.
Ok all that is silly enough. Here is where it reaches absurdity.
1- These locomotives are replacing perfectly fine and operating current gen locomotives. So perfectly good trains with decades of service life left are being de-commissioned and destroyed and replaced with these new clean engines. How much environmental impact is created by this needless manufacturing?
2- These new gen locomotives, in order to meet the new standard, include start stop technology. Yep just like your car at a redlight the engines are shutting down when not under load. Guess what happens to a diesel locomotive when you shut off its engine? If you guessed you lose compression braking you win the prize.
3- Most of these locomotives are being manufactured outside the US, because US labor is too expensive.
Total cost to CMI to build these 50+ locomotives? $1.6B
