Walmart Hits the Road With First Cummins X15N Natural-Gas Engine

A Walmart truck, powered by the inaugural Cummins X15N natural-gas engine, will travel across the country fueling up at Chevron CNG locations.

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April 20, 2023

Walmart Hits the Road With First Cummins X15N Natural-Gas Engine — The first-of-its-kind truck will travel across the country fueling up at Chevron CNG locations.
Photo: Walmart/Cummins/Chevron

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Cummins’ new X15N natural-gas engine is heading to California in a Walmart truck, the first 15L renewable natural gas engine on the road in North America, according to the announcement from Cummins, Walmart, and Chevron.

It’s the first North American — and the first of five — 15L compressed natural gas engine that will be incorporated into Walmart’s private fleet. The X15N engine is supplied by Cummins and fueled by Chevron with compressed natural gas linked to renewable natural gas. The Walmart truck will make its inaugural trip from Indiana to California, making pit stops along the way to refuel at Chevron stations. At the end of the road, it will be featured at the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo in Anaheim, California, May 1-4.

In introducing the X15N last year, Cummins said it used learnings from its X12N to address many of the drawbacks that has kept more fleets from adopting natural-gas engines, such as power, maintenance, and residual values. It’s not just a bigger version of the X12N, but part of Cummins’ new fuel-agnostic engine platform line.

Walmart Zero-Emissions Goals and RNG

Walmart said adding these five engines to its fleet marks another step along the retail giant’s road to achieving zero emissions across global operations by 2040.

Last year, Walmart announced several initiatives among its Class 8 transportation fleet to lower carbon emissions, including renewable natural gas, hydrogen, and electric.

Renewable natural gas is produced when biomethane from decomposing organic matter, such as cow manure or landfill waste, is captured, treated and processed into natural gas. Methane that is not captured and processed is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO₂) at trapping heat within the atmosphere, leading to climate change.

Last year, 69% of all on-road fuel used in natural gas vehicles was RNG, surpassing the previous year’s record-breaking level, according to a report from Natural Gas Vehicles for America and the Coalition for Renewable Natural Gas. RNG use as a transportation fuel grew 17% over 2021 volumes, up 218% from 2018 levels, according to the report.