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Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (MI-12) today joined with the University of Michigan and U.S. Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Office to announce a new research project that will study connected vehicles and whether they can help people drive more efficiently. The $2.7 million investment from the Department of Energy will couple the expertise of the University of Michigan with the Department of Energy’s Argonne and Idaho National Laboratories.

“The University of Michigan is already leading the way in vehicle innovation with the MCity Testing Facility, and this partnership will keep Michigan at the forefront of this progress,” said Dingell. “As we prepare for the future, it is critical that we understand how connected vehicles can improve vehicle efficiency, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and save consumers money at the pump so we can make sure these technologies continue to be developed and produced right here in Michigan.”

“Nobody knows the magnitude of what the energy savings of connected and automated vehicles will be,” said U-M Mobility Transformation Center Director Peter Sweatman. “We’re going to actively collect the data to do that.”

During the project, researchers will work with 500 privately-owned vehicles in the Ann Arbor area to collect information about how they are driven, including energy consumption, speed, and location. The study will examine how drivers interact with different technologies in connected vehicles, especially whether or not those technologies help them drive more efficiently. 

Argonne National Laboratory will provide modeling and simulation capabilities and develop a display module that the researchers will use to better understand driver behavior. Argonne’s Autonomie modeling tool is already one of the most widely-used pieces of software to understand how various technologies interact and influence efficiency. In addition, Idaho National Laboratory will provide guidance about data collection and analysis. Idaho is one of the main leads on the Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity, which has gathered data from hundreds of millions of miles of on-road testing.