Canada Lures U.S. Plug-In Hybrid Pioneer to Oversee National Hybrid Vehicle Effort
By John O'Dell May 18, 2010No more Mr. Nice Neighbor to the North.
The Canadian government has lured hybrid-electric vehicle powertrain pioneer Ali Emadi away from Illinois Institute of Technology to oversee the country's hybrid-vehicle development efforts at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
Emadi (right), will also help develop a new 15,000-square-foot hybrid-car development facility at the university.
He will fill one of 19 new research chairs across a range of sciences and will apparently specialize in plug-in hybrid powertrains with extended all-electric range - his forte in the U.S.
Each program will receive as much as C$10 million ($9.63 million) in federal funding over the Canadian Excellence Research Chair program's first seven years, McMaster University said in a statement.
The school, whose hybrid-vehicle facility will be part of a 50,000-square-foot automotive-research campus, is about 40 miles southwest of Toronto.
The appointment marks a significant uptick in Canada's effort to improve the overall fuel economy of its vehicle fleet and to catch up with Japan and the U.S. in the hybrid-vehicle building race.
Such efforts may help Canada reverse an automotive-trade deficit that's been in place since 2006. In 2008, Canada imported $14 billion in vehicles more than it exported, mirroring the $14 billion trade surplus the Canadian auto industry had in 1999, according to Canadian Auto Workers' union statistics.
"Canada has just been elevated another notch as a global leader in developing hybrid vehicle technology," said Peter George, president and vice-chancellor at McMaster University.
Emadi's appointment "reinforces McMaster's leadership in automotive research and places us at the forefront of hybrid vehicle research in this country," George said.
Emadi, who has written more than 250 articles, papers and books on hybrid-vehicle technology, also founded Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technologies Inc. in 2005.
That start-up, spun off from Chicago's Illinois Institute of Technology, is developing systems that would allow owners of conventional cars to convert them to plug-in hybrids, and in 2008 built a PHEV version of a Ford F-150 pickup truck that more than doubled the fuel economy of the conventional gas-powered version.
Felix Kramer, founder of plug-in hybrid advocacy and consulting group CalCars and no slouch himself when it comes to plug-in hybrid conversions, called Emadi "a giant" in the field.
Kramer, who brought Emadi's recruitment to our attention, notes that McMaster's president comments in an official statement welcoming Emadi to the university (he takes up his appointment next year) that his "experience in spinning off start-up companies
from the university environment will be an invaluable resource to the
community."
The Canadians apparently are qite proud of their success in wooing Emadi. His appointment was announced by not one but two national cabinet members, the ministers of Industry and of Science and Technology.
Do we sense competition from the North a-brewin'?
Danny King and John O'Dell
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