Research groups from the two largest automotive markets in the world are teaming up to develop more sustainable ways to power vehicles.
An American team, including researchers from Ohio State, the University of Michigan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and various automotive companies, will collaborate with a comparable group from China on a project to develop “clean vehicles.”
“You now have the two biggest players in this business working together to find solutions to the automobile industry of the future,” said Giorgio Rizzoni, professor of engineering at OSU and director of the university’s Center for Automotive Research, who will be the site director for OSU’s research team.
Researchers from the Center for Automotive Research will lead OSU’s group, which will consist of faculty experts and graduate students in engineering.
“We hope to improve technological solutions for lightweight, fuel-efficient vehicles that use fuels that are not based on petroleum,” Rizzoni said. “The mobility industry — anything that has to do with transportation and vehicles — will have to change.”
Rizzoni said he expects abound 12 OSU students who have been working on similar projects, such as SMART@CAR and the Buckeye Bullet, to join the consortium as graduate research associates.
The U.S. research consortium will receive more than $25 million throughout the duration of the project, which will last from 2011 to 2016. During those five years, OSU’s research group will receive $3 million from the government and $4 million from OSU and its industry partners.
The Chinese government should have a group of research institutions selected by the end of the year, Rizzoni said.
Students and researchers from both countries will participate in exchanges with each other and will conduct research together.
Rizzoni said it is important to develop electric cars to reduce carbon emissions and the United States’ dependence on petroleum. To accomplish this, a section of the research group will focus on developing more efficient car batteries.
Sudarsanam Babu, a professor of engineering at OSU, will be part of that group.
Babu said that to improve car batteries, “we need to understand the fundamental reason batteries are or aren’t working.”
Researchers are unable to pinpoint why certain batteries work better than others, he said, but it boils down to the inner workings of the batteries during the charging and discharging processes.
This research will extend beyond reducing automobile emissions, which account for approximately one-third of carbon emissions in the U.S., said Bill Burtis, communications manager for Clean Air-Cool Planet, a nonprofit group dedicated to researching and promoting solutions to global warming.
There are not ways to store energy from renewable resources, such as solar and wind, Burtis said. But the research on car batteries might provide a solution.
“You may produce a whole lot of energy on a sunny or windy day, and it might exceed demand in the particular area where it’s produced,” Burtis said. “Being able to store that is really valuable, and electric vehicles’ batteries basically are a way of doing that.”
Burtis said the ability to store renewable energies will also allow buildings to use them more.
“Imagine walking down a street in a city where the vehicles are quiet and where there aren’t fumes in the air,” he said, “where you’re not smelling diesel exhaust.”
