Opportunities for advancing the energy efficiency of connected and autonomous vehicles through ARPA-E's NEXTCAR Program

The U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) developed and initiated the NEXT-Generation Energy Technologies for Connected and Automated on-Road Vehicles (NEXTCAR) Program in 2016 with the aim of utilizing connectivity and SAE L1-L3 vehicle automation to achieve a 20% savings in the energy consumption of conventional and hybrid electric cars and trucks. Under the NEXTCAR Program, eleven individually-Awarded project teams, in collaboration with 13 OEMs, suppliers and partners, developed and implemented new advanced vehicle dynamic and powertrain control (VD&PT) technologies utilizing 2016-2017 L0 baseline vehicles. The first part of this talk will include an overview of the achievements of the NEXTCAR Program for each of the technologies developed and evaluated on light-duty and medium-duty vehicle applications (a sub-set of 9 projects). The second part will focus on the second phase of the NEXTCAR Program that launched in 2021. Phase II builds on the goals of the original Program with a specific focus on light-duty passenger vehicles, a 30% reduction in energy consumption, and taking vehicles to Level 4 of automation, where a vehicle is able to perform all driving operations on its own with optional human override. The overall objective being to develop technologies (including those developed under the original Program) that will address potential runaway energy usage caused by higher levels of automation. © 2000-2011 IEEE.