If they ever make a sequel to the 2006 documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car," it might begin with a resurrection scene scripted by Carnegie Mellon University robotics researchers and set in a Panther Hollow parking garage.

That's where a CMU Robotics Institute team headed by Illah Nourbakhsh and Gregg Podnar park the "pimped out" 2001 Scion xB they've converted into a quiet, non-polluting, plug-in-powered test vehicle they are using to demonstrate new ways to design, efficiently power and operate the next generation of electric cars.

The research project, dubbed ChargeCar, is using artificial intelligence coupled with a device called a "supercapacitor" to maximize vehicle efficiency and extend battery life. Dr. Nourbakhsh said the goal is to figure out how gas-powered vehicles can be cost-effectively converted to electric vehicles that meet individual urban commuting needs.

"The biggest cost of electric vehicle ownership is the batteries," said Dr. Nourbakhsh, a CMU associate professor of robotics who started working on electric cars in 1988 at Stanford University in California. "Smart power management will save money initially because it pairs a low-cost battery pack with a small supercapacitor. And that will continue to save money by increasing efficiency and extending battery life."

Supercapacitors are typically used to start train locomotives but are used by ChargeCar as a buffer between an electric car's batteries and motors. By adapting and properly sizing them to an individual motorist's commute, researchers said the load and heating of the car batteries -- which shortens the life of the batteries -- can be reduced by more than 50 percent. The power use efficiencies can also increase the range of electric vehicles between plug-in charges.

"The hills, weather, heat and cold, put a lot of stress on electric car batteries. If we can make a system that works here, it can be widely applied," said Mr. Podnar, the co-principal investigator on the project.

Replacing a battery package for a commercial electric car can cost $30,000, Dr. Nourbakhsh said, but by matching new artificial intelligence and battery technology more closely to an individual's commute, the cost of converting a gasoline-powered vehicle to an electric vehicle can be reduced to $8,000 to $10,000.

And such a converted electric vehicle could reduce the commuting costs of the typical Pittsburgh commuter by up to 80 percent.

Lots of car companies are working on electric cars, and Dr. Nourbakhsh said that in four years they will probably be able to offer a vehicle that will go 80 miles on a single charge and cost $50,000.

"But we asked what can we do today with affordable batteries and today's technology applied as cleverly as possible," he said.

To predict and tailor the power needs of the Scion test car, the project is employing braking, power use and GPS information gathered from Dr. Nourbakhsh's travels around Pittsburgh in his Toyota 2002 Rav4 electric car, and from the recently created national database for commuter travel.

That database, at http://chargecar.org, allows individuals to store and upload their commuting information using global positioning satellite data, which can be used to show the relative costs of gasoline versus electric vehicle commuting, and also the amount of battery wear that could be avoided by using a supercapacitor. Researchers are using the database to recalculate the power needs of electric cars. All the information and technology developed by the project will be available to the public, other electric vehicle researchers and commercial car companies.

"We're doing this because we want to improve urban transportation," Dr. Podnar said. "We want to prove this is a good way to do this in the real world. If the technology gets commercialized, that's great."

The project is funded by Donna Auguste, a CMU alumnae, her husband, David Hayes, and the Heinz Endowments.

By the beginning of next year, the researchers plan to establish a training program for mechanics to do gasoline-to-electric car conversions.

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