Amongst all the fuss surrounding the launch of the latest Fendt 700 Vario models, it went largly unremarked that the tractors feature AGCO’s new CORE engine family.
This totally new engine design is a result of a €1 billion investment at the Linnavuori engine production plant near Nokia in Finland.
Pick and mix
Currently, all AGCO Power diesel engines are fully compatible with renewable hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) fuels, which brings them close to carbon neutral operation.
However, there is a growing list of alternative fuels which hold potential for future use, such as hydrogen and natural gas, in both compressed and liquid form.
AGCO maintains that these new fuels require an engine that is designed from the ground up to be compatible with them, rather than adaptions of existing engines.
What the company claims is ground-breaking about the new CORE engine family is that they may be easily developed to run efficiently with different fuels as they become adopted as replacements for fossil diesel.
Tried and trusted
Compression ignition engines have been with us for over 130 years and they remain the most practical alternative in many applications.
AGCO notes that while the electric vehicles are becoming more common, the battery capacity is not yet sufficient for off-road machinery applications, except for the most compact machinery (less than 50kW).
The chief advantage of diesel fuel is that it has a high energy density and is reasonably safe and easy to handle.
Thermodynamic principles also dictate that the higher the compression ratio of engines the more efficient they are, unfortunately, engineering constraints such as handling the higher temperatures involved, put a cap on this.
CORE power in new Fendts
The first engine from the new family is the CORE75, a 7.5L block which delivers 1450 newton-meters (Nm) of torque at 1,300rpm (revolutions per minute), the highest in its power class according to AGCO.
The more normal engine speed at which maximum torque is reached is 1,500rpm, but through reducing it by 200rpm, fuel economy is enhanced, with AGCO claiming a specific fuel consumption of 188g/kWh.
This is the engine that the latest Fendt Vario 700 series tractors are built around. It marks not only a new generation of flexible engines, but also a firm commitment to the internal combustion engine as a power unit for many years yet.
Being designed as a multi-fuel engine, the CORE units are likely to be seen across the whole AGCO range and beyond.