Cummins surprised many with the debut of the AEOS – an all-electric short-range semi truck concept. Cummins is well known for their turbo-diesel engines, ranging from the small four-cylinder, inline-6 engines in big pickup trucks and semi trucks, as well as giant ship and stationary generator engines.
The AEOS prototype is “day cab” configuration meant for short cargo delivery jobs. The base model is equipped with a seemingly small 140 kWh battery, but Cummins stays the truck can tow a 22-ton (44,000 lbs) trailer and get about 100 miles of total range. A truck like this would be most useful from city deliveries and shipping port service.
Cummins says that there is capability to add battery units to increase the range up to 300 miles. If further range is required, the design allows for a diesel engine/generator to be added to the truck for a total range of around 800 miles.
Tesla Motors announced plans last week to debut an all-electric semi truck capable of 200-300 miles of range. Cummins is looking to compete directly against Tesla and other companies like Nikola with their long-range Nikola One truck.
Cummins says the AEOS electric energy efficiency is equivalent to about 30 MPG of diesel. Compare that to 8-9 MPG that many long-haul diesel-powered trucks currently get.
Could this development mean that Cummins electrified power units will make their way to Ram HD and Nissan Titan XD trucks? We will have to wait and see how this develops.
Here is the Cummins factory, which produces the 5.0L V8 turbo-diesel along with some bigger semi-truck diesel engines.
