Dana Inc.: Marcus King, Vice President of Off-Highway Global Sales, Business Development, Strategy, and Program Management

eMobility Offers Exciting New Opportunities

New advancements in eMobility technologies will bring performance enhancements to off-highway applications.

responses provided by Marcus King, Vice President of OffHighway Global Sales, Business Development, Strategy, and Program Management, Dana Inc.

Diesel, Electric & Other Power Alternatives

How do you see the role of diesel engines evolving in the coming years?

Hybrid, electric, hydrogen fuel cell, and natural gas will all play an important and growing role in the future of the commercial vehicle, off-highway, and industrial markets, but diesel will continue to play a significant role even as we reach out to 2040.

The commercial vehicle and off-highway markets—which currently are largely diesel—have made important progress over the last half century in improving emissions. Diesel powertrains will continue to compete in the total cost of ownership conversation as further weight reductions and efficiency improvements become available.

For example, our highly efficient hydromechanical variable transmission helps to reduce the fuel consumption of diesel-powered powertrains by enabling the engine to run at a consistent speed in its most efficient operating range in all duty cycles.

Also, Dana’s on-engine generator offers new vehicle architecture capabilities for off-highway hybrid applications where space constraints previously limited hybridization or engine downsizing. It offers improvements over competing technologies with respect to overall performance, physical packaging size, features, and flexibility.

Additionally, there are significant challenges in cost effectively establishing the electrification infrastructure for agriculture applications, so conventional powertrains will endure for the foreseeable future.

How will electrification—or other alternative energy/power systems— continue to advance in the heavy equipment industry?

We see electrification continuing to expand where e-Mobility systems deliver performance gains with a competitive total cost of ownership, and Dana has strategically invested to build on our more than a century of leadership in powertrain solutions.

In the past year, our acquisition of Rational Motion GmbH and investment in Pi Innovo LLC have further extended our ability to provide complete software, controls, integration, and engineering services to support our customers. These solutions position Dana to assist our customers during their transition to electrification and ultimately enhance the flexibility, robustness, efficiency, and safety of electric vehicle systems.

Our wide and growing portfolio includes e-Drive technologies, thermal management solutions, and integration capabilities that help OEMs improve the performance of new energy vehicles.

Additionally, we are developing e-Mobility and e-Motion systems across all the off-highway markets we serve, and we are supplying many of our customers with prototypes for testing. Off-highway OEMs are currently focusing on the electrification of compact equipment in construction, lift trucks used in warehouse environments, and underground mining vehicles where the cost of ventilation is driving the adoption of e-mobility solutions.

Challenges & Opportunities

Are there any technologies or trends which you are currently excited about in the heavy-duty vehicle industry, or most looking forward to seeing in the coming years?

The off-highway market is in an interesting place at the present time. As e-Mobility technologies continue to expand and take hold in a gradual way, we also have to address rapidly growing customer demand with field-proven drive technologies that maximize the performance of conventional diesel-focused vehicle architectures predominant today.

To this end, we are excited about the Spicer® HVT, an advanced powersplit transmission that supplies significant advantages across the board over existing competitive conventional transmissions. It utilizes an advanced electronic control system to continually adjust the mix of hydrostatic and mechanical power, allowing the engine to maintain a consistent speed in its most efficient operating range.

This July, we launched the Spicer HVT1 specifically engineered for the unique duty cycles of agriculture telehandlers. It offers fuel savings of up to 30% when compared with agriculture telehandlers that use conventional transmissions.

We’re also excited about our expanding portfolio of e-Mobility technologies for next-generation electric-driven vehicles. Our investment in resources to support the global shift toward electrification provides Dana with a large toolbox of offerings for a broad range of low- and high-voltage off-highway vehicle applications. |