Electric car research charging ahead
Donations totalling $3 million have boosted the University of Queensland’s research into electric-powered cars.
The University of Queensland has been given $1.5 million by energy businessman Trevor St Baker to boost its research into how countries can move more quickly to electric-powered cars.
The donation has been boosted by another $1.5m from the University of Queensland’s Dow Centre, whose research is aimed at creating environmentally sustainable industries.
The $3m will fund research into the new field of electric mobility, through a Tritium e-mobility visiting fellowship, named after a Brisbane-based company, chaired by Mr St Baker.
The company builds networks of fast chargers for electric-powered vehicles. The money will also help fund postdoctoral research in the area.
Mr St Baker said electrification of transport had the potential to radically change how people procured and managed energy.
University of Queensland vice-chancellor Peter Hoj welcomed the donation, saying it would aid the university’s “rapid-switch project”, which is looking at ways to speed up the move towards sustainable energy.
“We want to be the guys who really understand energy and energy transitions,” he said.
Professor Hoj said Queensland had access to huge amounts of intermittent sustainable energy that could be accessed with new technologies.
Mr St Baker said Australia’s transition to sustainable low-emission electric-powered transportation required a mix of research, development and technological leadership. His $1.5m gift came through the Trevor and Judith St Baker Family Trust.
Mr St Baker, who founded ERM Power, said Tritium had been set up by three University of Queensland graduates who, after taking part in solar-car races, realised the key to fast adoption of electric vehicles was a fast-charging network.
He said Tritium’s charging technology was now being installed in Europe and could transfer enough power in 10 minutes for a vehicle to travel 350km. He said the company now had more than 200 employees in Brisbane, Los Angeles and Amsterdam, and operated more than 2500 charging stations worldwide.
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