Washington, DC - The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today has selected Argonne National Laboratory to lead a consortium of university, private sector and national laboratory partners for a new, medium- and heavy-duty truck technical track under the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center (CERC) Truck Research Utilizing Collaborative Knowledge (TRUCK) program.
The multidisciplinary consortium, includes Cummins Inc., Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation, Ohio State University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Purdue University, and the University of Michigan. The program will address cost-effective measures to improve on-road freight efficiency of medium- and heavy-duty trucks by greater than 50 percent compared to today’s vehicles. In the United States, freight hauling by truck accounts for more than 15 percent of our oil use, and nearly 60 percent in China. The U.S. consortium will work with counterparts in China to leverage the technological research capabilities of both countries.
“Freight hauling by trucks is a significant source of energy consumption and pollution around the world, and the fuel savings promised by the technology advances under this CERC-TRUCK program will help to combat climate change while advancing low-carbon economies,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Dr. Ernest Moniz. “Working collaboratively with China will accelerate solutions to drive down technology costs that will improve transportation efficiency in both countries.”
Once the award is finalized, the non-Federal partners in the U.S. consortium will match or exceed DOE funding of $12.5 million for a total effort of $25 million or more. The consortium and their Chinese counterparts will bolster collaborative efforts for state-of-the-art technologies to improve freight efficiency that will reduce carbon emissions and lower fuel costs for companies and drivers. The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, with its consortium partners, has pledged an equivalent amount of resources, bringing the total bilateral effort to $50 million over 5 years.
CERC-TRUCK program was announced in September 2015 by President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping. This track will expand on the current CERC efforts that focus on the development and deployment of clean vehicles, building energy efficiency, advanced coal technologies for carbon capture, utilization and sequestration, and the water-related aspects of energy production and use.
The team’s work will focus on advanced internal combustion engines and powertrain systems; energy management (such as system-level efficiency improvements); hybrid electric powertrains; key truck technologies such as light weighting and aerodynamics; and applied research, testing and evaluation to better explore and improve the operating efficiency of medium- and heavy-duty trucks.
CERC is a Presidential initiative launched in November 2009. Its mission is to accelerate the development and deployment of clean energy technologies for the benefit of both countries, and to facilitate technical collaboration in mutually agreed areas and accelerate transition to an efficient and low‐carbon economy, while mitigating the long‐term threat of climate change. For more about CERC, see: www.us-china-cerc.org.
