Researchers to Study Efficiency of Self-Driving and Connected Cars

The University of Michigan has won a $2.7 million grant from the U.S. Dept. of Energy to study how connected and autonomous vehicles affect fuel consumption and energy efficiency.

The three-year project will monitor how drivers react to various functions in such vehicles. Some 500 volunteers near the university’s Ann Arbor, Mich., campus are being recruited to participate. They will use their personal vehicles—mostly hybrids and all-electric models—which will be equipped with various self-driving and connected vehicle technologies. Some fleet vehicles also could be included.

DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago will contribute modeling and simulation expertise in vehicle energy consumption. It also is developing a display module to better understand driver behavior. The project will use Argonne’s high-speed Polaris computing framework for traffic flow and transportation system modeling.

DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory will provide consulting services for the project. The lab recently led a nationwide study of about 8,300 EVs over 125 million miles to analyze energy usage and charging behavior.

The partners say this is the first comprehensive study of energy usage patterns related to automated and connected vehicles. Past research on these vehicles has focused on safety.