Russian-Austrian Marine Engine Project Needs Billions of Investments

"To us, Pulsar is the sorest subject today, as there’s no progress in this project. Despite the St. Petersburg Governor’s support, despite instructions of the president and vice prime ministers, the project is virtually frozen", said the manufacturing plant’s director.


He believes lack of funding for Pulsar’s batch production is the key issue. "At high local content, it was supposed around 7 bln rubles, at low one – 3 bln. However, we failed to find a source for either of these amounts", Plavnik said.

Designing of the V-shaped M150 Pulsar high-speed diesel engine started in 2011. According to the Zvezda director, the point was to commercialize the engine globally. The diesel was supposed to serve in civil industry and shipbuilding, including the naval one. The Pulsar’s marine version debuted at the International Maritime Defense Show 2015 in Saint Petersburg. As for Pavel Plavnik, today the engine’s performance features are comparable to foreign analogs, while in terms of ‘price-quality’ ratio the Russo-Austrian powerplant stands better.

Rated power of the 12-cylinder engine varies between 800 kW and 1830 kW depending on the version, cubic capacity is 37 liters.