Research projects
Research Project 1: Developing an EV Demonstration Testbed in the Upper Cumberland Region of Tennessee, an Economy Distressed Rural Region
Sponsor/Project Period : U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), 10/01/2019-12/31/2022 (this project was completed)
PI: Prof. Pingen Chen, Tennessee Technological University
Co-PIs: Prof. Stephen Canfield, Prof. Olorunfemi Ojo, and Prof. Indranil Bhattacharya, Tennessee Technological University
Project objective: This project will create a proof-of-concept demonstration testbed for EVs and charging infrastructures in UC region in Tennessee, which is a representative rural and economically distressed region, to provide the experience, research, demonstration and educational opportunities needed to address EV adoption issues. Comprehensive data will be collected and analyzed to report the operation cost, issues and performance of EV to help potential fleet owners and the public at large make informed decisions in EV adoption for rural areas before making significant financial investment.
Broad Project Impacts: 1) accelerating EV adoption and promoting EV awareness in rural vehicle fleets and communities; 2) reducing transportation cost, fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas and harmful emissions, and improving fuel diversity and public health in rural areas; 3) enabling smooth and long-distance intercity transportation of goods and people with rural EV charging infrastructure; 4) helping Tennessee’s corridor development initiatives and potentially boosting the economic development in the rural areas; 5) facilitating collaborations between universities, automotive OEM and suppliers, DOE designated clean city coalition, and national lab for EV research and development, outreach, and education.
Project Team: Tennessee Technological University (lead); The University of Texas at Austin; Nissan North America; Phoenix Motorcars; East Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition; Seven States Power Corporation; ChargePoint; Upper Cumberland Human Resource Agency; Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Lyft.
Project website: EV Demonstration Testbed in the Upper Cumberland Region of TN (tntech.edu)
Interested in the project? Please contact Prof. Pingen Chen via pchen@tntech.edu or 931-372-3310.
Research Project 2: Medium-duty eTruck: Pilot Electrified Fleets in Urban and Regional Applications
Sponsor/Project Period: U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), 10/01/2020-12/31/2024
PI at Tennessee Tech: Prof. Pingen Chen
Co-PI at Tennessee Tech: Prof. Stephen Canfield
Project objective: The goal of this project is to develop a first-of-its-kind, medium-duty electric truck (MD eTruck) demonstration testbed to be implemented on a wide range of trucking fleets in both Texas (in collaboration with University of Texas at Austin) and Tennessee to evaluate and improve the operational performance of MD (class 4-5) eTrucks in various fleet applications and to facilitate their adoptions of eTrucks. This demonstration will incorporate a diverse group of trucking fleets including large trucking fleets as well as small, family-owned, and financially constrained trucking fleets who have not had eTruck experiences. This project aims to develop suitable MD eTruck applications to help trucking fleets gain necessary eTruck knowledge and experience to make informed decisions on MD eTruck adoptions, and to discover ways to improve the utilization of eTrucks by learning from their real-world, daily operational data. This project will also make use of the testbed to pursue enabling research for electric truck systems. The project will serve as a proof-of-concept implementation to support knowledge and experience gaining, transfer, outreach, and education on MD eTruck technology for various applications. It can complement the DOE VTO’s existing EV data set with detailed eTruck operation in two states and eTruck use data dedicated specifically to the challenges and needs associated with MD trucking fleets for urban and regional applications.
Broad Project Impacts: 1) helping small and large trucking fleet owners, and governmental agencies to accelerate the adoption of MD eTrucks to a broad range of regions that house strong trucking industry outside of California; 2) reducing fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and improving the fuel diversity, environmental quality, and public health through eTruck adoption; 3) coordinating with Drive Electric Tennessee, TennSmart, and clean cities coordinators in Texas and Tennessee in three initiatives including eTruck Ride-and-Drive promotion events, commercial vehicle fleet education, eTruck consumer education, to boost eTruck awareness and help convert local freight fleets into eTrucks; 4) identifying suitable applications for MD eTrucks to help eTruck manufacturers understand the market and increase the eTruck penetration in the market; and 5) facilitating collaborative opportunities among universities, non-profit organizations, electric vehicle manufacturers, charging station suppliers, clean city coalitions, and national labs for future eTruck research and development, demonstration, and training of next-generation EV engineers. EERE funding, along with the cost-share from the team members, will enable this novel and pilot MD eTruck demonstration project to be conducted for generating positive societal impacts.
Project Team: The University of Texas at Austin (overall project lead); Tennessee Technological University (lead in Tennessee); Phoenix Motorcars; East Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition; Middle-West Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition; Seven States Power Corporation; Tennessee Trucking Association; Oak Ridge National Laboratory (project advisor).
Interested in the project? Please contact Prof. Pingen Chen via pchen@tntech.edu or 931-372-3310.
Research Project 3: Rural Reimagined: Building an EV Ecosystem and Green Economy for Transforming Lives in Economically Distressed Appalachia
Sponsor/Project Period: U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), 8/01/2022-10/31/2025
Principal Investigator at Tennessee Tech: Prof. Pingen Chen, Tennessee Technological University
Project Funding: $8,026,086 (DOE: $4,012,930; Project Team: $4,013,156.)
Background and Grand Challenges
The Appalachian region has long provided natural resources for the nation’s prosperity. However, as of 2021, Appalachia has more than 182 counties designated as economically distressed or at-risk, the majority of which are in five states including KY, WV, OH, TN, and VA (as shown in Figure 1). With the rise of the clean energy economy around electric vehicles (EVs) for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the rural and low-income communities in central Appalachia have struggled the most in the transition, due in part to a lack of EV infrastructure, low awareness, and limited-to-no access to EVs and clean energy jobs in EV sector.
Project objective
To overcome the abovementioned barriers, the project objective is to build the underpinnings of a comprehensive EV ecosystem and green economy in the most economically distressed Appalachian region to transform the lives of rural and low-income communities, through strong regional collaboration. This project aims to provide clean and affordable mobility options to the underserved communities by developing needed charging infrastructure, and adopting and demonstrating various cost-effective EVs in diverse applications. In addition, by partnering with a broad set of EV stakeholders, this project aims to create outreach, training and education opportunities to residents in rural and low-income Appalachian communities to kick-start electric vehicle adoption and clean-energy job opportunities where it is needed most.
Broad Project Impacts:
1) helping rural residents, fleet owners, and government agencies jump-start their EV adoption; 2) supporting smooth transition from fossil fuel-based economy to clean energy economy and create new job opportunities in EV sector; 3) reducing fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and improving fuel diversity, environmental quality and public health in rural areas; 4) improving mobility equity for these underserved and economically disadvantaged communities; and 5) facilitating collaborative opportunities between universities, automotive EV OEMs, EV charging station suppliers, and other stakeholders for training technicians and engineers to serve the rapidly growing EV industry and clean energy economy.
Project Team: The project team includes 60 partners
Interested in the project? Please contact Prof. Pingen Chen via pchen@tntech.edu or 931-372-3310.
Research Project 4: Second-life Battery in Mobile EV Charging Application for Rural Transportation (SMART)
Sponsor/Project Period: U.S. Department of Energy, Vehicle Technology Office (10/1/2023 – 9/30/2026)
PI: Prof. Pingen Chen, Tennessee Tech.
Co-PIs at Tennessee Tech: Prof. Nan Chen, Prof. Joseph Olorunfemi Ojo.
Project Funding: $9,202,718 (DOE: $4,531,642; Project Team: $4,671,076)
Background: Mobile charging stations (MCSs) play a critical role in removing the charging deserts in rural areas, as they can be transported to desired locations for electric vehicle (EV) charging with fewer concerns about the power infrastructure and locational constraints, thus alleviating range anxiety. While rural America will potentially need many MCSs to eliminate charging deserts, the high investment cost due to large and new battery energy storage systems (BESS) and low utilization rate can prohibit the adoption at a large scale. The requirement of large and new BESS in MCSs also adds a burden to the U.S. battery supply chain.
Project Objectives: This project aims to address the urgent need to develop affordable MCSs that can be deployed in rural America at a large scale by utilizing second-life batteries (SLB) retired from EVs. The project objectives are to 1) design, develop, demonstrate, and validate four types of cost-effective MCSs that utilize SLB to reduce the upfront investment cost; 2) create and demonstrate first-of-the-kind affordable, resilient, and sustainable rural EV infrastructure in a multi-state region (TN, OH, VA, KY, WV, KS, and TX) by seamlessly integrating the affordable MCSs into the existing charging network to support electrification in underserved rural communities; 3) collect and analyze the first-hand data of SLB-integrated MCSs to assess the potential market and benefits; 4) create outreach, training, and education opportunities to help a broad range of EV stakeholders make informed decisions in adopting SLB-powered MCSs and develop economically viable charging stations.
Project Impacts: The impacts of EERE funding include: 1) reduce energy consumption, environmental impacts and life cycle cost of EV batteries; 2) mitigate constraints from the battery supply chain on the development of charging infrastructure and increase EV battery manufacturing capabilities in the U.S.; 3) improve mobility equity and help rural residents, fleet owners, and government agencies to accelerate EV adoption in economically distressed rural areas; 4) support transition from fossil fuel-based economy to clean energy economy and create new job opportunities in EV sector; 5) reduce fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and improve fuel diversity, environmental quality, and public health in rural areas; 6) support workforce training to serve rapidly growing EV and SLB industry and green economy.
Project Team: The project team consists of one major EV OEM (Nissan North America), one major EV battery manufacturer (Envision AESC), one MCS supplier (BoxPower), one second-life BESS diagnostic company (ReJoule), one battery material recycling company (Princeton NuEnergy), four academic institutions (Tennessee Technological University, University of Texas-Austin, University of Kansas, and University of Memphis), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, TVA, and two major DOE clean-city coalitions (East Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition and Virginia Clean Cities), three State Energy Offices (Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, Kentucky Office of Energy Policy, Texas State Energy Conservation Office), top ranked engineering, procurement, construction provider (Black & Veatch).
Interested in the project? Please contact Prof. Pingen Chen via pchen@tntech.edu or 931-372-3310.
Past Projects:
- Education Program for Connected and Automated Electric Vehicles (CAEVs), Sponsored by Denso North America Foundation, (07/2020-04/2022)