By Jason Cannon, CCJ.

Cummins announced Tuesday at the Work Truck Show in Indianapolis several improvements to its lineup of midrange engines for the 2017 model year.

Jeff Caldwell, Executive Director of North American Truck OEMs, says the company’s market-leading B6.7 is seeing an average improvement that exceeds the program’s 7 percent initial target.

“Today’s 6.7 is the B Series’ most efficient engine to-date,” Caldwell says, noting the engine’s Efficiency Rating jumped 8.5 percent and Performance Rating boosted 5 percent over the EPA 2013 ISB6.7.

For some applications and duty cycles, specifically pickup and delivery, Caldwell says the Efficiency Ratings have shown up to a 13 percent fuel economy improvement over the EPA 2013 ISB6.7.

“As the program progressed,” he says, “we found opportunities to tune and optimize the engine, delivering further efficiency, and allowing us to surpass initial expectations.”

Apart from base engine fuel economy enhancements, Cummins features a Stop-Start capability with the B6.7, which Caldwell says provides additional fuel economy improvement from 3 to 15 percent. Stop-Start technology allows the engine to operate only when necessary by shutting off the engine during idle, which reduces fuel consumption and increases durability.