Hybrid trucks, buses focus of new Purdue center

Purdue University will lead a new effort aimed at cutting fuel consumption in half for commercial vehicles by perfecting hybrid technologies for the world’s burgeoning bus and truck fleets. Two College of Technology faculty members are part of the five-member project management team.

The new Hoosier Heavy Hybrid Center of Excellence (H3CoE) is funded with a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Graduate Automotive Technology Education initiative.

Buses and trucks, particularly vehicles used to transport goods, represent a huge percentage of global fuel consumption and tailpipe emissions, said Gregory Shaver, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and the center’s principal investigator.

“There is a lot of potential to increase the efficiency of these vehicles,” said Shaver, who co-directs the center with Maryam Saeedifard, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. Additional faculty making up the project management team include Vahid Motevalli, head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering Technology; James Caruthers, the Reilly Professor of Chemical Engineering; and Eric Dietz, associate professor of computer and information technology.

Read the full Purdue University news release.

(Photo: Purdue doctoral students Dan Van Alstine and Karla Stricker work on a diesel-engine test platform at the Ray W. Herrick Laboratories. The work is related to a new effort aimed at cutting fuel consumption in half for commercial vehicles by perfecting hybrid technologies for the world’s burgeoning bus and truck fleets. The new Hoosier Heavy Hybrid Center of Excellence is funded with a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Graduate Automotive Technology Education initiative. (Purdue University photo/Mark Simons))