The federal government’s ramped-up grants-driven support for new automotive technologies and innovations has largely centred on Canada’s manufacturing heartland in Ontario, but a handful of automotive researchers and companies in B.C. are receiving federal funding and playing a small role in rejuvenating Canada’s largest manufacturing industry.
Three relatively new grants programs have been launched by the federal government to help keep the fickle industry competitive.
The most recent program, Automotive Partnership Canada (APC), was launched in April 2009, as an acknowledgement that “global economic challenges are turning the automotive industry on its head.”
Through grants made by five federal agencies, the five-year, $145 million program invests in three research areas:
- improving the environmental performance of vehicles;
- building “smarter” cars; and
- implementing next-generation manufacturing processes.
“By demonstrating that Canada is a great place to do research, we will attract investment from international automakers, which will in turn create high-value, sustainable jobs,” said a spokesperson from Industry Canada about APC in an email statement.
APC has committed $23.2 million to seven projects to date.
The majority of that money has been directed into projects in Ontario-based research teams in schools like the University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto and companies like General Motors of Canada Ltd.
One of the seven projects funded by APC is being lead by a B.C. team.
That project, led by researchers at the University of British Columbia with support from the iand engineers at Vancouver’s Westport Innovations Inc., is receiving $500,000 from APC over five years.
The project’s aim is to help Westport model the causes of soot formation in natural-gas engine combustion chambers.
According to APC, if Westport can reduce soot formation in its natural-gas engines, it will be able to lower its engines’ emissions below European and North American standards without sacrificing fuel efficiency – thus giving it a market advantage.
“The research we are undertaking is time-consuming and expensive,” said Sandeep Munshi, Westport’s senior scientist for engine research, in an APC release.
“Obtaining cost-sharing support from APC definitely makes it more appealing for a company like Westport to invest in this kind of longer-term research.”
A computer scientist from UBC and two computer scientists from the University of Victoria (UVic) are receiving some of the $10.6 million that APC is providing to a five-year project being led by McMaster University, GM, IBM Canada and Malina Software.
For UVic’s Daniela Damian, one of the three B.C.-based computer scientists participating in the McMaster-led project, the government funding is integral to her and her students being able translate their research from the lab and into industrial applications.
“We’re not just developing tools or theories in the lab that may not work when you get outside the lab,” said Damian.
She and other researchers in the project are studying how GM’s global network of software developers create and share information with each other.
Automated techniques and methodologies potentially created by Damian and other researchers are to assist vehicle manufacturers in addressing the logistical challenges of bringing together remote software teams tasked with developing new automotive components.
“Imagine these globally distributed teams as webs – like a big social network – of people working on different things,” said Damian.
“You need to have information flowing along these web lines in the network, irrespective of geographical boundaries.”
She noted that her students are among the main beneficiaries of the project, as they will be doing most of the fieldwork.
Oldest among the federal government’s three main automotive industry support programs is Auto21, which has committed $63.7 million to automotive research projects since it began in 2001.
According to Industry Canada, Auto21 has helped expand the number of Canadian automotive researchers from a handful to more than 260 across the country.
“This research has far-reaching effects in areas not typically associated with traditional automotive research,” said Industry Canada.
Among the B.C.-based recipients of Auto21 funding is a UBC engineer who is developing a scalable and secure telecom platform that auto manufacturers can use to equip their vehicles with wireless communications systems (think of the next generation of OnStar).
A mechanical engineer at UBC is receiving funding from Auto21 to perfect the machining of small dies, plastics moulds and other components used to create increasingly smaller automotive parts.
The federal government’s third primary support mechanism for the automotive industry is the $250 million Automotive Innovation Fund (AIF), which, since its creation in 2008, has committed $80 million over five years to Ford Motor Co. of Canada’s Windsor-based operations and $54.8 million over five years to Linamar Corp.’s powertrain manufacturing operations in Guelph.
B.C. researchers and organizations have yet to be earmarked for funding through AIF.
Unlike those of the AIF, APC and Auto21, Sustainable Development Technology Canada’s (SDTC) mandate isn’t exclusively to support the automotive sector.
However, the non-profit foundation, which was created by the federal government in 2001 to act as the primary catalyst for the development of sustainable technologies in Canada, has been a key financial supporter of the automotive sector.
SDTC has committed $478 million into 195 projects across Canada, including 30 transportation-sector projects.
Of those 195 projects, 47 are in B.C. Nine of those 47 projects are being led by B.C. companies that are innovating the transportation sector by developing things such as more efficient lithium batteries and cleaner diesel exhaust systems.