This week, UBC was host to the 2011 PACE Global Annual Forum, a conference with the theme Collaborative Strategies to Address Global Challenges. PACE (Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education) links “GM, Autodesk, HP, Oracle, Siemens PLM Software, and their global operations, to support strategically selected academic institutions worldwide to develop the automotive product lifecycle management (PLM) team of the future”. Alan Steeves and Jon Mikkelson from Mechanical Engineering are two of the conference’s co-hosts.
Featured at this conference for its debut in Vancouver was the new hybrid Chevy Volt. GM Manager of Advanced Technology and R&D and PACE Canadian Representative Marc Boismenu was very excited to share some details about their new innovated vehicle that, unlike many other hybrids, uses an electric motor. This motor is powered by a 16kwh lithium ion battery pack that can take you 60km on one charge. An additional gas generator is there for when the battery runs out. A regenerative breaking system is also present to further increase efficiency of the vehicle. GM was happy to let Dr. Sheldon Green, Mechanical Engineering Head, take the volt out for a test spin around UBC as well.