Transportation

Image of an electric vehicle lithium-ion battery pack.

Berkeley engineer Gerbrand Ceder leads new consortium to make batteries for EVs more sustainable

09/13/23 Berkeley Lab — Berkeley Lab: Breakthrough battery technology could ramp up domestic supply chain of critical minerals driving clean energy transition

Cruise autonomous taxi operating on a San Francisco street.

‘Robo-taxi takeover’ hits speed bumps

09/08/23 — Scientific American: Berkeley transportation engineer Steven Shladover says a lack of safety data available to the public is one reason the reality of self-driving cars doesn’t yet match the hype

Researchers achieve extremely fast charging speeds for commercial lithium-ion batteries

07/10/23 — New approach reduces charging time to 15 minutes, opening the door to wider adoption of EVs

Photo montage: Scott Moura charging a Tesla, high voltage transmission tower, and electric car charger plug

Smart and in charge

05/17/23 — As California moves toward an electric vehicle future, professor Scott Moura is creating a smart charging system that promotes grid stability.

Impressionistic photo of highway traffic at night

Stopping traffic

05/17/23 — A traffic experiment suggests that just a few AI-equipped vehicles on the road can ease traffic jams and reduce fuel consumption.

When will cars be fully self-driving?

04/18/23 The Wall Street Journal — Wall Street Journal: UC Berkeley EECS professor Alexandre Bayen and other experts weigh in on what the future holds for autonomous vehicles

Researchers viewing multiple video screens showing field test of AI-powered cruse control system

Massive traffic experiment pits machine learning against ‘phantom’ jams

11/23/22 — CIRCLES Consortium field trial shows AI-powered cruise control system could help smooth traffic flow, improve fuel economy

Pravin Varaiya, pioneer in smart transportation, dies at 81

06/23/22 — Credited with spearheading the self-driving car revolution in the 1990s, Varaiya brought an economist's grounding to research on the internet, energy and transportation systems and urban environments

Flying buses in California skies?

04/18/22 — The CITRIS Aviation team is collaborating with Caltrans to lay the groundwork for air mobility in urban areas

A driving force behind mixed-autonomy traffic

08/26/21 — Amazon Science: Alexandre Bayen's research, combining machine learning with big data, looks at how coordinated automation could improve traffic flow, boost efficiency and slash emissions

Using AI to eliminate traffic jams

03/13/21 Fortune — ITS Director Alex Bayen explains how autonomous vehicles can help traffic flow more smoothly.

Clean Air Car Race turns 50

11/05/20 — In 1970, two teams of engineering students participated in a cross-country car race to test technologies that reduced automobile emissions.

The Clean Air Car Race turns 50

08/26/20 — In 1970, Berkeley Engineering students envisioned low-emission cars of the future

Jack Moehle receives top earthquake engineering award

03/05/20 — The Earthquake Engineering Research Institute bestowed Moehle, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, with the George W. Housner Medal

Autonomous vehicles: The answer to our traffic woes

08/28/19 Wired — Berkeley Engineering's Alexandre Bayen and Liao-Cho are studying the impact that autonomous vehicles can have on traffic flow. And, their findings suggest that self-driving cars can help alleviate traffic.

Waze hijacked L.A. in the name of convenience. Can anyone put the genie back in the bottle?

08/21/19 Los Angeles Magazine — Traffic apps, like Waze, turned L.A. neighborhoods into "shortcuts." Los Angeles Magazine recently spoke to UC Berkeley's Alex Bayen and Susan Shaeen about how we got here and whether this trend can be reversed.

Nighttime traffic on U.S. Highway 101 south of San Francisco

Shifting gears

05/01/19 — The integration of self-driving vehicles requires policy decisions that consider how travel behavior will shift with the introduction of new mobility choices.

Going with the Flow

05/01/19 — Researchers have developed a machine-learning tool to manage traffic where autonomous, partially-automated and manual vehicles share the road.

Ion drive flight test points to radically different future for aviation

12/05/18 Forbes — Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have conducted a successful 8-second flight test of an aircraft with an ion drive propulsion system, a larger version of the same cutting-edge technology that Berkeley engineers are using to fly centimeter-scale microrobots.

Watch just a few self-driving cars stop traffic jams

11/19/18 Science — Anyone can start a traffic jam - just by tapping the brakes. Now, scientists at Berkeley have shown that a few self-driving cars can prevent such jams - and in some cases double the average speed of surrounding vehicles.