In addition to recent investments in Fridley, Cummins is investing more than $1 billion across its US engine manufacturing network in Indiana, North Carolina and New York. The investment will provide upgrades to those facilities to support the industry’s first fuel agnostic engine platforms (earlier post) that will run on low carbon fuels, including natural gas, diesel and eventually hydrogen, helping decarbonize the nation’s truck fleets today.

Over half of all medium- and heavy-duty trucks on the road in the US today use Cummins engines, the company said. This investment is intended to retain the thousands of current engineering and manufacturing jobs and support the creation of hundreds of new jobs across the company’s New York, North Carolina and Indiana footprint as Cummins invests in its people and facilities to grow innovation and manufacturing and accelerate decarbonization efforts.

The announcement includes Cummins’ plans to invest $452 million in its Jamestown Engine Plant (JEP) to upgrade its 998,000 square-foot facility in Western New York to produce the industry’s first fuel-agnostic internal combustion engine platform that leverages a range of lower carbon fuel types. The X15N is part of the new fuel-agnostic 15-liter engine platform produced at JEP.

Cummins customers, including Walmart, Werner, Matheson, and National Ready Mix, among others, are beginning to test the first engines of the fuel agnostic platform, the X15N. Walmart will receive the first field test unit later in April to take part in the field test of this 15-liter advanced engine platform running on renewable natural gas.

At the Fridley facility, Accelera by Cummins—Cummins’ zero-emission technology brand—will soon manufacture electrolyzers, which are a critical piece of the green hydrogen economy. Hydrogen produced by electrolyzers can power hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and is used in industrial processes like steel production. Building electrolyzers in Fridley is helping to bring the supply chain for zero-emissions vehicles to the United States.

The Cummins Power Systems factory is a 1.1 million square feet full-service facility, concentrating on design, product, service engineering and manufacturing located just north of Minneapolis. Established in 1969, Fridley employs over 900 and will plan to dedicate 89,000 square feet of the existing facility to electrolyzer production starting April 24. This is a $10-million investment that will support 100 new jobs by 2024.

Information on additional investment in Indiana and North Carolina will be made public later.