The Automotive Research Alliance (ARA) is a consortium of seven major Southeastern universities including Alabama, Alabama-Birmingham, Auburn, Clemson, Kentucky, Mississippi State and Tennessee as well as the Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL), the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the National Transportation Research Center, Inc., (NTRCI). Collectively this team represents the largest integrated group of researchers and engineers focused on the transportation industry in North America. These resources are immediately ready to engage in partnership to help accelerate the commercial innovation necessary to achieve energy independence, crash-free and congestion-free highways and a new, emerging vehicle-infrastructure communications business.

 Individually, the members of the ARA offer a wide range of research and development capabilities in automotive technology and complementary skills. Collectively, the ARA offers unsurpassed capabilities in advanced automotive technologies research, development and deployment with access to XXXX highly skilled researchers, state-of-the art testing and development facilities. A large regional organization focused on solving large integrated systems solutions.

To accelerate the commercial innovation necessary to solve these challenges as an inter-dependant team, industry, government, and the ARA can conduct the complex systems research and enable commercial introduction using a novel distributed innovation process interconnected by a secure Internet system. This system can quickly and efficiently focus research on the most critical elements of these challenges and in partnership with industry and government focus the commercial introduction.

The recognized challenges of the industry today include issues of energy, environment, safety congestion and materials utilization.  Each offer significant benefits if properly addressed individually, but far greater industry impact can be realized when these opportunities are viewed collectively.  In the transportation sector, traditional processes for research and innovation have typically concentrated on the three individual systems shown in Figure 1.  These processes rightly strive to bring benefits that include lower cost energy, reduction in environmental impacts as well as lightweight and smart materials.  Rarely however, do the current processes address the areas where greatest gain and most competitive advantage can be achieved.   Only a more comprehensive complex systems approach to solving problems that intersect all three will provide solutions to the efforts to achieve the goals of petroleum independence, no deaths on our highways and an efficient flow of American traffic.  These are the Grand Challenges of the Automotive Industry.

The Automotive Research Alliance demonstrates the power of partnership between industry and educational institutions to solve current issues facing the automotive industry, and to work together to create sustainable automotive technologies for the future.