11/08/2017
PUNE:
American
diesel engine specialist Cummins is setting up the group's biggest technology
centre in Pune at a cost of Rs 1,500 crore. The proposed Cummins Technical
Centre in India (CTCI) will come up on a 16-acre campus at Kothrud on the
outskirts of Pune.
It will develop electric and hybrid vehicle
solutions, including affordable emission technologies, with the help of 2,500
engineers, according to Sandeep Sinha, chief operating officer of Cummins Group
India
The expenditure on the proposed centre will be
spread over three to five years, he said. Apart from delivering affordable
emission solutions for the local market, the India centre will also spearhead
the company’s global effort to improve emission technology, including for
vehicles and hybrid solutions.
Sinha said the Kothrud centre will, in a way,
consolidate the company’s R&D resources at one place, just as the company
had consolidated its manufacturing footprint from different locations at its
facility in Phaltan, on the outskirts of Pune, in late 2000.
The R&D facility will transform from being just
an analysis-led design base to the one which can design, develop and execute
for the company’s global operations. The centre will work on exploring and
providing technology insights that will offer a critical competitive advantage
in engine, component and generator technology for its global operations.
CTCI will eventually have more than 36 engine test
cells, engine builds and tear down areas and other spaces essential to
technology, product development, verification and validation work across the
various engine, generator and component technologies. “Starting with
analysis-led design, (we) graduated to designing sub-systems to entire
platforms… We have actually ended up designing the Euro V platforms out of
India,” said Sinha.
“That is what will give us an edge, with Euro 6
coming in India in a short period of time. We already have engineers who are
working on the BS 6 solution.” To meet the upcoming emission regulations with
‘fit for market’ solutions, Cummins is developing an engine with a selective
catalytic reduction after treatment, while also incorporating an internally
developed, high-pressure common rail electronic fuel system for better fuel
economy and performance, Sinha said.
The COO said the company will invest close to Rs 200
crore on development of BS VI platform for the Indian market. According to
Sinha, Cummins has a go-to-market electric vehicle platform in the works which
will hit the US market in 2019, and a significant part of that work is
happening in India.
The company said Cummins can complement India’s push
towards electrification and vehicle hybridisation, whenever it happens, with
ready solutions, and the new tech centre will play a key role in making it
affordable for the Indian market.
0 comments:
Post a Comment