Driving forces
Few industries have seen the same kind of technology development as the forest machine industry. And the driving forces behind this development have seen equally large changes. In the beginning, development was mostly about optimizing production. Today, the array of requirements is far more complex and includes everything from the financial means of individual forestry contractors to an important focus on global environment and climate issues.
Increasing demands
Through legislation and market demands we’ve seen a rapid rate of emission reductions – from a 29% NOx and a 10% PM reduction in 1996 to a full 97% reduction of both NOx and PM by 2014 (see illustration). This has resulted in the development of various emission control technologies by forest machine manufacturers.The diesel price is another factor. In many countries, the price of diesel almost doubled between 2001 and 2011. This means that today forest machines must often clock up many operating hours in order to achieve acceptable levels of profitability. So it's little wonder that forest machine owners welcome every small improvement in fuel efficiency.