AEV Summit: Cummins Finds Success In Zero-Carbon Mindset

This keynote recap is from FreightWaves' Autonomous & Electric Vehicles Summit on Wednesday.

KEYNOTE TOPIC: Covering all bets in future propulsion

DETAILS: Say Cummins CMI and the first thought is, "Oh, it makes diesel engines." That is only a part of the 102-year-old company today. Hydrogen, fuel cells and battery-powered electrification account for a growing part of the company portfolio. The changes mirror transportation's move to alternative fuels.

INTERVIEWER AND SPEAKERS: Craig Fuller, founder and CEO of FreightWaves, and Amy Davis, president of New Power Business at Cummins Inc.

SPEAKER BIO: Davis joined Cummins in 1994 and has held numerous leadership roles across the company. Prior to her current role, she served as vice president of the $1.2 billion Filtration business, achieving record revenues and profits. Davis previously served as president of the Cummins Northeast distributor as an owner, transforming a small business into a high-growth, customer-driven operation and again seeing significant revenue and profit increases. 

KEY QUOTES FROM DAVIS: 

"If we don't think about disrupting, we are not going to succeed. So we really have a disruptive zero-carbon solution mindset. How do we find the best endgame that is going to work for all of our traditional customers? But because we have a huge portfolio of partners and customers that we have worked with for a lot of years, in some ways we have to help them with the transition."

"I do think different countries are moving at different paces and that's changing all the time. Certainly, Europe is a little bit ahead of us, in my mind. They are making ambitious statements, putting money aside, making the commitments in their budgets, and actually putting programs in place. We are seeing our [European] customers really acting a lot faster than, let's say, the U.S. China was there as well [and] that has slowed down a little bit. … I also have seen a lot of movement with the new administration, a lot of discussion with the infrastructure bill and other things."

"One of the things that I am personally feeling a little bit challenged with is that we are trying to design the systems for the ultimate application. This is our differentiation. We know the duty cycles, so it is not a one-size-fits-all. There is a little bit of a bang-it-out mentality happening with some of my competitors right now to try to standardize and throw some stuff out there, and that's interesting for the short term. … But really putting [a solution] out there that's going to do the work most efficiently and cost-effectively is what we are about."

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