Peterbilt Powered by Cummins X15N Natural Gas Engine: How Does It Compare to Diesel?

This Peterbilt 579 is powered by the Cummins X15N natural gas engine. This is Cummins's latest and greatest natural gas engine and is just one of 3 engines in their new fuel-agnostic platform. This CNG engine features greater fuel efficiency than its predecessor, the ISX12N engine, and is lighter than its diesel counterpart. Peterbilt has fully integrated the X15N with its 579 powertrain to make this tractor model a viable option for long-haul trucking. But, how does driving a Peterbilt 579 with a natural gas engine compare to driving a diesel 579? CCJ Chief Editor Jason Cannon takes the truck for a test drive at the end of the video to find out.

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To watch a test drive of Peterbilt's model 589, click this link:    • Peterbilt's new model 589; Test drive...  

In This Video:
00:00 - Peterbilt 579 With Cummins X15N
00:17 - Engine and Truck Overview
04:43 - Test Drive

AI Video Transcript:
Jason Cannon
Hey everybody. CCJ Chief Editor Jason Cannon here. I'm here with Patrick Wallace, marketing manager with Peter Bill, and our special guest is this Peter Peterbilt right here. We're. Patrick has some something particularly special about this truck, because the Cummins logo on the hood is bigger than the Peterbilt logo on the hood. So tell us a little bit about what makes this truck unique.

Patrick Wallace
Well, this is a model 579 and it features Cummins new X15 engine. And this is the latest and greatest natural gas engine that come and has released. It's the first engine on their new engine architecture platform. So they're doing a new fuel agnostic platform. And it's going to have hydrogen diesel and natural gas. This is the first engine that comes out of that family, and it's a great improvement over the I6 12.

Patrick Wallace
And there's, better fuel economy. So about a 10% increase in fuel economy over that old engine. It's a great benefit over you know, an next 15 is pretty light. You actually drop 500 pounds over a X15 diesel because you don't have to have as much after treatment here. You don't need any kind of urea injection or anything like that.

Patrick Wallace
So that's a good thing. And it also there's been big improvements with drivability. So this one's paired with an endurance 12 speed transmission. And there's been specific drivability calibrations really to get, you know the best feeling the best maneuverability and drivability possible with a natural gas powertrain.

Jason Cannon
Now, Patrick had said it was the latest in the greatest natural gas engine, but it's also the biggest. That's right Ken, let's pop the hood and take a look at sure. You think so? When you pop the hood, I mean, it's red. It's a Cummins engine. It does look a little bit different, but for the most part, it just looks like a big Cummins engine.

Jason Cannon
So Patrick, walk us through I mean what makes this special other than, you know, some of the plumbing that you can see obviously at least in the natural gas. Yeah.

Patrick Wallace
And so it's a big block. That's a nice thing. And customers will appreciate that. And this is all new. This is a whole new design. You can see this is well integrated as well. This has our air filter and everything like that that you'd find on a on a similar diesel. And I would say it's our best integration yet.

Patrick Wallace
It's a very good packaging job to integrate. This is a fully integrated powertrain. It's definitely not an afterthought. It's it's something that we want to offer customers. We consider ourselves leaders in natural gas. We offer it in a variety of models as well. Also be in our 520 refuse, truck and vocational applications as well to power numbers.

Jason Cannon
What are we making here?

Patrick Wallace
Yeah, so this truck has 400 horsepower. But the great thing about this new X15 is we can go anywhere from 400 to 500 horsepower and up to 1850 torque. So this this really will get you comparable to a lot of diesel applications.

Jason Cannon
What about the tanks? I mean, that's that's a unique configuration there. And I realize the more tanks you have the more you know range. And so you can kind of bake in. But what would you consider would be common on a spec like this. We're talking about a day cab. So obviously this truck wouldn't go very far.

Patrick Wallace
Yeah. Actually this truck does go pretty far. It has a 175 diesel gallon equivalent tank. So it could go, you know, almost 800 miles or something like that. So if you look in our booth here at Expo, we actually have a 579 ultra loft. And we want to show that to show customers that now it's an option to go long haul with natural gas because we have the range.

Jason Cannon
What's the ideal natural gas customer? We hear a lot about electrification being, you know, limited range. Obviously you don't have a lot of range limitations with this, but, you know, you talk to a lot of people, you know, a lot of customers...