Global Partnerships Competing for First Place in the Race for Optimal Fuel Efficient Technologies

Argonne National Laboratory’s senior staff signing a Memonrandum of Understanding with India’s NATRiP during a video conference call. From left: Larry Johnson, TTRDC director; Raj Sekar, a senior mechanical engineer; and Eric Isaacs, Argonne director. The laboratory is one of the U.S. Department of Energy’s largest facilities for science and engineering research. Photo courtesy of Argonne.

As competition intensifies among automotive companies to come up with the most fuel efficient vehicles that are also cost-effective to produce, some research groups are taking the alternative approach of global cooperation.

Argonne National Laboratory’s Transportation Technology Research and Development Center has just signed a partnership with NATRiP, India’s National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project, through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to develop energy efficient transportation technologies.

This latest agreement will allow both groups to cooperate through information exchanges of publicly available research data, and visits to each other’s facilities.

The partnership will focus on technical areas connected to:

• Fuels.
• Vehicle simulation models.
• Mass transportation vehicles.
• Instrumentation and text protocols.
• Engine combustion and emissions technologies.
• The development of the following vehicle types: battery-powered electrics; plug-in hybrid electrics; hybrid-electrics, and fuel cells.

“Staff interaction will be the main mode of collaboration,” said Raj Sekar, a senior mechanical engineer at Argonne, in a statement. Neither facility was available for direct comment.

This is the third such partnership that Argonne has entered. In June, Argonne entered into a MOU with the Korea Automotive Technology Institute.

In 2004, a similar partnership was formed with the China Automotive Technology and Research Center to “foster the commercialization of energy efficient vehicle technologies and clean transportation fuels in China,” said Argonne.

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