Imperial College in low carbon vehicle research joint venture with leading Malaysian University

The development of low emission vehicles of the future will be the focus of a major collaboration between Imperial College London and UTM, one of Malaysia's leading universities. The initiative was launched by Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister in London.

 

The UTM Centre for Low Carbon Transport will bring together some of UTM and Imperial’s world-class researchers as they develop the next generation of low carbon transport technologies.

 

The researchers will work on a range of areas to make cars more efficient. Teams will look at ways of optimising technologies for advanced hybrid and electric vehicles to improve their range. They will also develop new concepts for energy storage and waste energy recovery technologies to make cars lighter.

 

Professor Ricardo Martinez-Botas from Imperial's Department of Mechanical Engineering, who has championed the establishment of the Centre said: “Vehicles are a major contributor to global warming and energy consumption. Significant CO2 reductions of around 30 per cent of the current fleet average could be achieved at low cost with technologies such as engine downsizing, light-weighting and selection of smaller vehicles. With the rise of developing countries like China and India their environmental impact is only set to increase."