EFFICIENCY DRIVE TO SAVE CUSTOMERS 264 MILLION GALLONS OF FUEL

JCB’S growing reputation for fuel efficient machines is going up a gear with the company on course to save customers a total of 264 million gallons of fuel within the next 12 months.

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Continuous research and development in both machine and engine design is leading to the massive fuel savings for JCB customers across the world.

Tim Burnhope, JCB’s Chief Innovation and Growth Officer, said: “We have made incredible fuel efficiency improvements since 2010 and by early next year we will have saved our customers a staggering 264 million gallons of fuel.

The machines that we sell in 2014 alone will help our customers to save 80 million gal in their first year of use, when compared to the machines that we were selling in 2010. That’s equivalent to an incredible saving of $320 million for JCB customers around the world.

“It doesn’t stop there though. While emissions legislation will push engine and equipment manufacturers to achieve increasingly stringent exhaust emission levels, our continued focus on efficiency in every aspect of machine design, and the further development of our award-winning JCB Ecomax engine range, will see further savings in the future.”

As an example, in 2010 JCB’s iconic 3CX backhoe loader consumed around 2.3 gal of fuel. With the adoption of JCB’s highly efficient Ecomax diesel engines in the latest machines, fuel consumption has been dramatically cut, to around 1.6 gal for the current 3CX ECO models.

This has been achieved through a combination of engine efficiency, hydraulic technology and more sophisticated control systems. For the backhoe loader for instance, EcoRoad features include TorqueLock, which alone accounts for a 25% fuel saving when roading in higher gears, plus JCB’s Smooth Ride System (SRS) can deliver for up to 10% savings in load and carry.

EcoDig, which now controls and combines the output from three hydraulic pumps to provide the same power at lower engine revs, can also deliver up to 15% fuel savings. A secondary benefit of this greater efficiency is improved control for the operator, while lower engine revs result in reduced noise levels and emissions, which benefit all.

It’s a similar story with other JCB machines. In Europe and the USA, the popular JS200 crawler excavator has seen fuel consumption drop from around 6.0 gal in 2010 to around 4.2 gal currently, thanks to improvements in engine and hydraulic technology. Even the less emission regulated JS205 that is produced by JCB in India has seen fuel consumption cut from around 5.5 gal to around 4.8 gal.

The adoption of JCB’s Tier 4 Interim compliant Ecomax engine has played an enormous role in reducing costs for telescopic handler customers and those operating larger skid steers and compact tracked loaders. For example a customer using a 531-70 telehandler in 2010 could expect fuel consumption of around 4.5 gal. Today that will be closer to 3.5 gal. A 175 skid steer customer using up to around 3 US gal four years ago, can today expect that to be closer to 2.1 gal.

In addition to the fuel savings that customers can expect on all JCB machines, JCB has also been working hard to ensure that all of the Tier 4 Interim engines that are installed in its machinery have been designed and engineered to meet these emissions regulation standards without the need for costly, bulky and complex diesel particulate filters (DPF) or exhaust after treatment.

“The expectation for the first part of Tier 4 interim legislation was that to achieve these really low particulate levels you needed to fit a Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF),” said Mr Burnhope.

“But when you look at that technology for our particular part of the market, namely mid-range construction equipment, we see there are some real disadvantages with that solution, in particular increased fuel consumption through increased back pressure to the engine. Also, in many applications load cycles are light and the DPF doesn’t self-regenerate so you have to force it to do so and it needs fuel to do it.

“Our strategy has been to meet Tier 4 Interim emission standards without a DPF, but also to achieve this without any exhaust after-treatment. We have focussed our research and development efforts on a high efficiency combustion system; in other words we have made sure we don’t create the pollutants to start with rather than try and deal with them later. This approach also gives us very low fuel consumption levels.”                                              

This approach also ensures that designers can provide the lowest engine cover lines, for maximum visibility and safety on site. It results in improved packaging too, as there is no requirement for additional cooling radiators. There is also no need for costly exchange of DPF exhaust systems, reducing maintenance costs, while all JCB Ecomax engines can be operated with standard lubricating oils, again minimising ownership cost for the customer.