Transforming TENNECO

From new-tech suspensions designed to curb motion sickness in AVs to lightweight exhausts, Dr. Ben Patel's engineers are innovating toward the electrified, automated-driving future.

Exhaust systems, even prototypes fitted with advanced electronics, are not typically the stuff that grabs big headlines. Engineers working on next-gen hybrid propulsion, however, know that a trick set of pipes capable of harvesting waste heat, while sounding sweet-and even creating sound to aid pedestrian safety during low-speed electric operation-is a technology asset worth considering.

Such were my thoughts recently inside Tenneco's 53-foot demo trailer. On the table in front of me, a neatly designed and TIG-welded exhaust system featured both an integral, electronically controlled heat exchanger and active-acoustic control device the company dubs Smart Sound. But the steel tubing made my journalist's brain wander to…the metals-tariff war and its impact on this $9.3-billion supplier's product strategy.