If you think that the latest round of off-road clean-diesel mandates, or Tier 4, will kill off the engine that powers the majority of construction equipment, think again. A new guard of sophisticated, clean-burning, electronic engines are rendering extinct the prehistoric, smoke-belching, mechanical diesels of yesteryear. Cleaner power costs more up front, but it promises more long-term returns.
The diesel's transition from mechanical to electronic operation bears some resemblance to a period that automotive enthusiasts call the "Malaise Era," a difficult decade of performance and reliability problems when new emission and fuel regulations began crippling gasoline engines in the 1970s. It took engineers years to work out the bugs.