During the first half of the 1900s, diesel engines became an important and prioritized product area for Atlas. But despite technical innovations, such as the reversible engine, diesel production never became a sustainably profitable business.
Large diesel engine, manufactured at the Sickla workshop, 1900–1920.
But when production got under way, there were no customers. It was not until 1902 that Atlas received a proper order – for 15 engines. This was much due to the efforts of Marcus Wallenberg, who was a devoted marketer of the new engine. Through Hesselman – a renowned and brilliant chief designer – the engine's teething problems were resolved. Among other things, he invented new valves and a new fuel pump so that fuel consumption was significantly reduced at the same time as the weight was lowered. He also made the engine reversible, which meant that the engine could change its direction of rotation when shifting from forward to reverse and vice versa. This entailed that the engine could now also be used in ships. The first ocean-going ship in the world with this reversible engine was the three-masted schooner Orion, with a 60-hp diesel engine from Sickla. When the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen journeyed to the South Pole in 1911 with the research ship Fram, he chose engines from Atlas Diesel. After this successful expedition – Amundsen was the first to reach the South Pole – the name of the engines was changed to Polar. The engines now became larger. In 1916, two Polar engines were delivered with a combined 3,300 hp to the Norwegian tanker Hamlet. These were the world's most powerful diesel engines built to date.
Atlas Diesels vice president and senior engineer Herman Pyk took 1931 the bold step of entirely focusing operations on two-stroke engines.
In 1931, Atlas vice president and senior engineer Herman Pyk took the bold step of entirely focusing operations on two-stroke engines, a decision that had disastrous consequences. The future for bus, tractor and automobile engines was instead in four-stroke engines. Moreover, the competition had become tougher for medium-sized marine engines. Both from Bolinders and shipyards such as Kockums and Götaverken. To be able to retain production, several measures were taken to find new application areas for the diesel engine. These included the manufacture of rail motor coaches for diesel-electric operation and a switching locomotive for the Swedish State Railways. But this was not a profitable line of business either. The final solution came in 1948, when Atlas Diesel received an offer from Nydqvist & Holm in Trollhättan to take over production. This was the same company that 30 years previously, had taken over locomotive production from Atlas. Over a period of 50 years, Atlas had manufactured a total of 5,447 engines with a combined horsepower of 1,000,000.
