UC Davis students competing in the first national FutureTruck competition in mid-June won the best fuel economy category and finished in fourth place overall. The UC Davis team is advised by Professor Andrew Frank and Dr. Mark Duvall of the Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering Department. The project is based in the USDOE-funded Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technology Center. The team achieved fuel economy of 18.7 miles per gallon in their hybrid Chevrolet Suburban, an almost 13 percent increase over the standard Suburban.

"Our strategy is a little bit different," undergraduate student Nat Meyr said in an interview with The Sacramento Bee. "Most schools have a gasoline car with electric assists. We do more of an electric car with a gasoline engine assist."

The UC Davis FutureTruck, named "Sequoia," is a charge-depletion parallel hybrid-electric vehicle (HEV), featuring HEV rear-wheel drive and electric front wheel drive. For its primary power source, it utilizes a 1.9L Saturn internal combustion engine, 75 kW Unique Mobility BDC motor, and Borg-Warner six-speed gearbox. The truck obtains secondary power from a 75 kW motor coupled to the front axle to provide 4-wheel drive capability and additional power for acceleration and towing. The electric components are powered by a 336-volt, 90 amp-hour Ovonic nickel-metal hydride battery pack with a total energy of 29.6 kWh and peak power of 180 kW at 50 percent state of charge.

A combination of efficient powertrain design and drag reduction techniques allows Sequoia to travel over 70 miles on battery power alone as a zero-emission vehicle. The students predict that charging the Suburban's battery at home combined with increased gasoline fuel economy could save drivers of a vehicle like Sequoia thousands of dollars in fuel costs over its lifetime.

The team would like to thank its many dedicated sponsors, including: General Motors, Sacramento Municipal Utility District, California Energy Commission, GM Truck Group, Ovonic Battery Company, The Saturn Corporation, GM Powertrain, Yolo-Solano Air Quality Management District, and Hexcel Composites. The DARPA Advanced Vehicle Program also provides funding for numerous advanced hybrid research projects at UC Davis.

The FutureTruck Competition replaces the FutureCar Competition, in which UC Davis took first place in 1997 with a hybrid Ford Taurus. The new challenge was to reinvent the sport utility vehicle, and to maintain truck-like attributes the ability to carry cargo and pull heavy loads such as trailers while reducing fuel consumption and emissions.

Fifteen university teams from the United States and Canada competed in the two-week competition at the General Motors Desert Proving Grounds near Mesa Ariz. Davis was the only UC campus participating this year.

Dozens of reporters from across the country covered the competition. In addition to excellent coverage in major daily newspapers, the competition made headlines on Paul Harvey's national radio show, as well as NPR's All Things Considered.

The UC Davis team already has plans for next year's competition. They plan to refine the powertrain control strategy for greater fuel economy and reduced emissions. Additional reduction in vehicle mass and drag from advanced components can further increase the vehicle's all-electric range. Finally, there is a rumor that a special high-torque, high efficiency CVT (continuously variable transmission) developed in earlier FutureCar research could find its way into the powertrain bay for next year.

This program is a new study to assess the energy and environmental consequences of China auto industry development. Read more under "New Initiatives" below.

• Toyota, General Motors, and DaimlerChrysler have each pledged $30,000 for this effort.

• The Energy Foundation also approved an initial grant of $25,000.

ITS-Davis' Electric Vehicle (EV) market studies from 1995 and 1996 remain the most thorough investigations of potential EV market in California - as witnessed by continuing references to them at this year's spring California Air Resources Board ZEV workshops. The primary reports, and a few journal reprints, are listed below. Related publications on ITS-Davis' market research methodology are also available through the publications desk.

• RR-95-5, Turrentine, Thomas S.\, K.S. Kurani, "The Household Market for Electric Vehicles: Testing the Hybrid Household Hypothesis - A Reflexively Designed Survey of New-Car-Buying, Multi-Vehicle California Households" $20

• RR-95-6, Kurani, Kenneth S., D. Sperling, T.E. Lipman, D. Stanger, T.S. Turrentine, A. Stein, "Household Markets for Neighborhood Electric Vehicles in California" $25

• RR-96-19, Bunch, David, C. Kazimi, "Analysis of the Future Household Market for Alternative Fuel Vehicles in Southern California Using a Microsimulation Forecasting System" $5

• RP-98-22, Turrentine, Thomas S., and K.S. Kurani, "Using reflexive methods to identify and estimate markets for novel transportation products: Household markets for electric vehicles" Transportation. 25:2, pp.207-22. 1998.

• RP-94-14, Kurani, Kenneth S., T.S. Turrentine, D. Sperling, "Demand for Electric Vehicles in Hybrid Households: An Exploratory Analysis" Transport Policy, pp. 244-256, May 1994

• RP-96-9, Kurani, Kenneth S., T.S. Turrentine, D. Sperling, "Testing Electric Vehicle Demand in 'Hybrid Households' Using a Reflexive Survey" Transportation Research D, pp.131-149, May 1996

ITS-Davis publications can be ordered by fax, e-mail or mail. International orders must be prepaid. Checks or money orders are accepted. No credit cards.

In addition to ITS-Davis, government and private industry partners included PATH; California Department of Transportation (Caltrans); American Honda Motor Company, Inc.; BART; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; INVERS; and Teletrac.

In the last decade carsharing has become more common, especially in Europe. Approximately 200 carsharing organizations are active in 450 cities throughout Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Great Britain and Italy. In the United States, besides the CarLink project, programs are under way or being planned in Seattle, Chicago, Portland, Ore., Boulder, Colo., and Riverside, Calif.

"The one-person, one-car approach to transportation is not sustainable," said Daniel Sperling, director of ITS-Davis. "Smart carsharing is an innovative step in the right direction - toward transportation that is more economic, equitable and environmental."

The CarLink program was launched on Jan. 20, 1999, and ended on Nov. 15, 1999. Its purpose was to examine participants' real-life experiences, identify market segments where smart carsharing would be attractive, and study the use of intelligent technologies to reduce the inconvenience of carsharing.

Participants were very cooperative in furnishing information and feedback about their CarLink use. They completed questionnaires before and after the program, provided data about their travel patterns, participated in household interviews and focus groups, and gave dozens of media interviews.

The next program, CarLink II, is set to launch in January 2001 in the San Francisco Bay Area. Negotiations are under way to run it as a pilot program initially managed by ITS-Davis but eventually becoming independent. CarLink II will be similar to CarLink I, but this time the research focus will be on demonstrating a business case and testing new carsharing technologies.