Knight Transportation demonstrates potential of ultra-low carbon natural gas with X15N engine

Clean Energy provided the renewable natural gas for Knight's tests, which the carrier said lowered emissions without compromising performance.

FleetOwner Staff

Oct. 2, 2023

3 min read

Phoenix, Arizona-based, Knight Transportation, Inc., part of Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings (No. 3 on the FleetOwner 500: For-Hire) tested Cummins’ new X15N natural gas engine in Southern California—realizing NOx and greenhouse gas reductions without compromise to performance.

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“Our customers rely on us to deliver a wide range of loads critical to their businesses,” said Dave Williams, Knight-Swift Transportation’s senior vice president of equipment and government relations. “We must ensure we are utilizing the most reliable and efficient technologies possible that help us reduce our carbon footprint.”

Knight Swift’s goal is to reduce 50% of the CO2 emissions generated from the KNX fleet by 2035.

Clean Energy exclusively fuels the truck using ultra-low carbon renewable natural gas (RNG) anchored by Clean Energy’s station in Carson, California.

“We create negative carbon intensity RNG by trapping methane at its biogenic source, preventing it from escaping to atmosphere, and turning it into transportation grade renewable fuel,” said Clean Energy Vice President Derek Turbide. “This results in Clean Energy’s negative carbon intensity RNG that we supply to Clean Energy stations throughout California.”

Coming to market in 2024, the Cummins X15N natural gas engine delivers diesel-like ratings as well as durability and reliability. This allows fleets to significantly reduce their carbon footprint without sacrificing capability. The X15N offers a solution toward achieving sustainability goals, including the ability to run on renewable natural gas.

“Our relationship with the Knight Transportation family goes back more than 30 years with a rich history of partnering through field tests of new technologies and features,” said José Samperio, vice president North American on-highway business, Cummins Inc. “The feedback in the development process is invaluable to the product’s long-term success for our customers. The suite of integrated Cummins technologies used on these trucks from engine, aftertreatment, and fuel storage to transmission, axles, and the digital features that pull them all together in their most optimized form demonstrates the value of our next generation of product to our customers.”

“We value our collaboration with Cummins and are encouraged by what we have seen so far with the 15-liter renewable natural gas technology,” Williams said. “We will continue to work together to make sure that the capabilities and economics associated with this technology allow us to meet the wide- ranging needs of our fleet.”

The field testing with Knight-Swift will continue through full production of the X15N powertrain in 2024.