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63 AutoData | December 2018 Multi low carbon engine The Cursor X concept takes the hybrid engine technologies already available on the market to another level. It is an engine that will be able to be configured with the most suitable type of propulsion for certain applications. All this in one piece, designed to combine CNG propulsion with fuel cell, parallel hybrids or series hybrids with pure electric system. David Wilkie (director of CNH Industrial’s design center) mentioned during his presentation at FPT Tech Day the first ideas that generated the concept. He affirmed that the shape design respected a plug and play concept to be easily connected into vehicles without the need for specific chassis development to accommodate it. Wilkie is known in Brazil for being responsible for the interior design of the VW Logus in the mid-90s. The memory makes him very proud, but he feels sorry: “It’s a shame I’ve never seen a Logus up close” - he left Autolatina before the beginning of the model’s production, exclusive of Brazil. Another novelty of the Cursor X Concept is its ability to learn. It will be equipped with processors and sensors capable of recognizing anomalies, analyzing components’ wear and anticipating the correct maintenance time. All this will be possible thanks to artificial intelligence, which will generate a large amount of information, interacting with a customer’s control center and the manufacturer itself in order to improve its own operation and even create new software, even more efficient for its longevity. FPT says that the combination of natural gas with an electric mode option could be used to transport passengers in urban centers and regional displacements with a 30% reduction in CO2 emissions. The electric mode would be the logical op- tion in urban deliveries, since light trucks should converge their emissions to so- mething close to zero in the next decade. The Cursor X will deliver autonomy of up to 200 kilometers in this configuration according to the manufacturer. For applications of heavy transport in long distances FPT Industrial introduced a truck chassis prototype with a fuel cell system powered by hydrogen. With a ma- ximum power of 400 Kw, the equivalent of approximately 544 hp, the vehicle has an estimated autonomy of up to 800 ki- lometers. “The market can rely on this concept of hydrogen propulsion from 2020. We need demand to make the project feasible in terms of cost, but the development is already at an advanced level.” The performance is similar to a com- bustion engine, but the overall weight is 70% lower compared to a purely electric 44-ton truck equipped with batteries. There are other advantages, such as the fueling time: 20 minutes compared to 2 hours of the electric. The executive showed herself confi- dent in the fast advances for the mobi- lity of the future without emissions, an obsession for regulatory bodies and the industrialists themselves in the European Union. And she placed her expectation on the hydrogen cell prototype’s success: “We hope to offer a definitive version of this technology to the market in a little more than two years”.