[acparker]

Achates and an unnamed truck manufacturer are getting $7 million (only part of total funding) from CARB to get a demonstration Class 8 truck on the road by 2019.

A quick review of articles on this engine has mostly revealed an atrociously low level of basic engineering understanding on the part of so-called journalists. The worst thing to happen to journalism has been journalism majors. It doesn't help that Achates blows a lot of smoke with their PR spokespeople, which is to be expected in that cutthroat industry. As more money is involved, useful information is harder to come by.

I hope they are able to get a demonstration truck working -- soon.

Opposed-piston engines have been around for a very long time. Chrysler killed the Rootes/Commer TS3 and TS4 opposed-piston engines when it purchased Rootes in 1968.

The rocker-lever design used by Rootes was not original to them. Sulzer, Olds, and the French manufacturer, MAP, built similar engines at least ten years earlier. These engines were compact and powerful. They had their quirks, but were generally held in high regard by their operators and the mechanics who kept/keep them going.

Sulzer built primarily stationary engines (ZG9). There are Swiss fortresses with Sulzer engines running generators.

Ransom Olds also built stationary and marine engines through the Hill Diesel Engine Company. I have seen reference that Hill built licensed Sulzer engines, but Olds held patents on a rocker-lever engine as early as 1937.

MAP ran a four cylinder version of their standard two-cylinder tractor engine (2H88) in Le Mans in the late 50's. In Italy, licensed MAP engines, built by Breda-Isotta Franschini (FB4R) were also put into Ansaldo Fossati tractors.