SAE Tomorrow Today

The path to the future isn’t just exciting; it’s electric.

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Global auto supplier BorgWarner is leading the way through their aggressive electrification initiative with a plan to grow EV revenues from 3% today to 45% by 2030 and become carbon-neutral by 2035.

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This transformation of an auto industry stalwart is built on three pillars: profitably scaling electric light vehicles, expanding into electric commercial vehicles, and making strategic business acquisitions & dispositions.

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We spoke with BorgWarner’s Dave Fulton, Engineering Director, Electric Machine Innovation, and Monty Hayes, Global Director, eHW Growth and Innovation, about their commitment to organic growth initiatives.

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They also discuss the company’s longstanding support for SAE International STEM initiatives. BorgWarner’s $1M+ investment since 1987 to the SAE Foundation has impacted over 64,000 students across 10 countries in the past decade alone.

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We’d love to hear from you. Share your comments, questions and ideas for future topics and guests to [email protected]. Don’t forget to take a moment to follow SAE Tomorrow Today (and give us a review) on your preferred podcasting platform.

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Ag tech is poised to disrupt life on the farm. John Deere’s new autonomous tractor uses stereo cameras, GPS guidance, and advanced AI to detect obstacles and navigate in the field. Farmers monitor and control it from a smartphone app. And it can free them from long days in the tractor seat, help ease labor shortages, and improve productivity and sustainability.

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Deere also recently opened a tech center in Texas and acquired Silicon Valley startup Bear Flag Robotics and Austrian battery maker Kreisel Electric.

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We spoke with Joseph Liefer, Senior Product Manager for Autonomy in the John Deere Intelligent Solutions Group (and a farmer himself), about cutting-edge innovation and the farm of the future.

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ICYMI, here’s our podcast with Bear Flag Robotics.

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We’d love to hear from you. Share your comments, questions and ideas for future topics and guests to [email protected]. Don’t forget to take a moment to follow SAE Tomorrow Today (and give us a review) on your preferred podcasting platform.

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You can’t fix what you don’t see. And you can’t convince consumers and regulators you’re clean without transparent supply chains.

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Manufacturers need to measure their environmental and social impact, but the vision becomes murky when their supply chains are complex and opaque. How are raw materials mined and refined? What is the carbon impact of shipping? How do upstream suppliers manage production?

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Circulor helps brings those answers to light. Using blockchain technology, Circulor enables companies to trace the movement of goods and document sustainability — from sourcing raw materials to the recycling supply chain. In this episode of SAE Tomorrow Today, we speak with Founder and CEO Doug Johnson-Poensgen about his company’s quest to bring transparency to supply chains and promote the circular economy.

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We’d love to hear from you. Share your comments, questions and ideas for future topics and guests to [email protected]. Don’t forget to take a moment to follow SAE Tomorrow Today (and give us a review) on your preferred podcasting platform.

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The Henry Ford is a lot of things. A museum of American innovation near Detroit. An Emmy-winning TV show seen in 60 countries. An invention competition striving to reach a million students a year. Stories from the past that inspire innovation for the future.

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Its transportation-related, hands-on exhibits include iconic symbols of social, cultural, and commercial transformation. The Wright Brothers’ workshop. Model Ts and autonomous vehicles. The bus where Rosa Parks changed the world.

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These people, places, and ideas create “goosebump moments” that inspire the next generation to conceive and achieve big dreams, says Patricia Mooradian, President & CEO of The Henry Ford.

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On this episode of SAE Tomorrow Today, Mooradian and Matt Anderson, Curator of Transportation for The Henry Ford, tell stories of remarkable innovations from the past that inspire and shape our vision of what’s possible in the future.

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We’d love to hear from you. Share your comments, questions and ideas for future topics and guests to [email protected]. Don’t forget to take a moment to follow SAE Tomorrow Today (and give us a review) on your preferred podcasting platform.

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With $5B in the new US infrastructure law designated for EV charging stations, there’s a lot of work to be done—and a lot of taxpayer dollars at stake.

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This federal funding coupled with strong consumer demand and innovative solutions from industry have created a perfect storm to drive EV adoption. Taite R. McDonald believes it’s going to “change the landscape of America.”

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McDonald, Equity Partner at Holland & Knight LLP, advises government contractors. In this episode of SAE Tomorrow Today, she says the $5 billion federal spend:

·        Is a “down payment” that will unleash billions more in private sector financing for EV infrastructure

·        Is a critical step for the US to catch up with other nations on clean tech and EV adoption and to hit targets in the Paris Declaration

·        Must be spent effectively to build consumer confidence in the viability of EVs, eliminate range anxiety, and boost green mobility

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Europe’s success with this type of funding model is powerful evidence the US initiative is on the right track.

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UPDATE: Since the recording of this episode, The White House published FACT SHEET: Securing a Made in America Supply Chain for Critical Minerals that addresses a few unanswered questions discussed during this episode. 

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We’d love to hear from you. Share your comments, questions and ideas for future topics and guests to [email protected]. Don’t forget to take a moment to follow SAE Tomorrow Today (and give us a review) on your preferred podcasting platform.

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Electrify everything? Not so fast. Achieving sustainable mobility will require multiple solutions. There is no silver bullet.

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In this episode of SAE Tomorrow Today, we speak with the co-authors of Racing Toward Zero: The Untold Story of Driving Green, who advocate a multi-faceted approach to a green future. Kelly Senecal, co-founder of Convergent Science, and Felix Leach, Associate Professor of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford, argue that the government regulations and media hype pushing battery electric vehicles (BEVs) to the forefront are misguided.

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For the biggest, fastest impact on carbon emissions, Senecal and Leach believe in advancing a variety of propulsion systems – not go all in on a single approach like electrification. Most vehicles on the planet use the internal combustion engine, so improving its technology and fuels can have a huge, immediate impact on reducing emissions globally. There are great electric vehicles available today, but they are a small part of the market and don’t meet every consumer need. Hybrids, meanwhile, can be greener than electrics in regions reliant on coal and natural gas to produce electricity. Longer term, hydrogen and fuel cells may have a role to play.

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For a limited time, SAE is offering a 40% discount off the list price. Order Racing Toward Zero: The Untold Story of Driving Green now! 

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We’d love to hear from you. Share your comments, questions and ideas for future topics and guests to [email protected]. Don’t forget to take a moment to follow SAE Tomorrow Today (and give us a review) on your preferred podcasting platform.

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You don't have to be a parent to know that today’s classrooms – like many things over the past two years – are being disrupted. And while emerging technology can provide new opportunities to grow, hands-on education also remains fundamental to the learning process. 

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SAE International’s Vice President of Programs, Christopher M. Ciuca, has spent his career committed to empowering educators to prepare today’s students to become tomorrow’s innovators. 

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Ciuca and his team have built award-winning STEM learning programs that are inclusive, engaging, and accessible. And as homes across the globe transitioned into makeshift classrooms, they’re working to create new tools for educators – as well as the family at home – that combine the hands-on with the cutting edge. 

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Bonnie Thibodeau, SAE’s Pre-College Program Developer, shares the launch of her passion project, The STEM Sagas: Virtually Rerouted. This digital comic book is available free online and has dynamic visuals, relatable characters, and an exciting Computer Science-themed storyline. 

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As Ciuca and Thibodeau give more families the opportunity to #MeetSAE, they’re learning how to give students the chance to experience, collaborate, and think about ways to move society into the future. All of this is possible with the support of folks like you – volunteering, collaborating, and supporting the SAE Foundation – to fund these initiatives as well as awards and scholarships.  

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Learn more about what SAE is doing to promote STEM education initiatives and explore the SAE Foundation video series on YouTube.

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We’d love to hear from you. Share your comments, questions and ideas for future topics and guests to [email protected]. Don’t forget to take a moment to follow SAE Tomorrow Today (and give us a review) on your preferred podcasting platform.

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Follow SAE on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

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Flying cars have been a part of public fancy at least as far back as the 1920s, when speculative author Hugo Gernsback pictured rotor-enabled “Helicars” as a remedy to the crowded streets of New York. Now, a century later, such vehicles are poised to become the stuff of reality.

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Soon, as you look across the urban skyscape, you may see a sleek, fully autonomous “flying car,” cutting travel times for the city’s residents in half. And the name on the side of that vehicle? Honda.

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With an astounding 5% of annual revenues poured back into research and development, Honda is seriously committed to revolutionizing mobility through land and air in the spirit of the company’s tagline, “The Power of Dreams.” One such project is the Honda eVTOL, a lightweight, hybrid aircraft which literally takes autonomous mobility to the sky as part of Honda’s plans to deliver a multimodal system for consumer intercity transportation needs.

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In this episode of SAE Tomorrow Today, our guest is Shun Kawabe, Fellow, Director of New Mobility Research Division, Honda R&D Co., Ltd. in Japan. With an impressive 35-year tenure at Honda in research and development as well as an academic background in aerospace engineering, Mr. Kawabe has had an enviable career of helping technology give wing to the possible. He shares his insights on the Honda eVTOL’s ability to maximize its travel range (approximately 250 miles) thanks to its hybrid power approach via a gas turbine generator and electric battery; the role of Honda’s core technologies in such disciplines as jet engines, mass car production and Formula One to provide a wholistic approach to new concept explorations; and the importance of an engineer’s creativity and imagination to deliver new ways of mobility safely and sustainably.

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What inspired Mr. Kawabe to pursue a career in aeronautics and autonomy? As a young man, his imagination was ignited by the Honda motorcycle and by visits to the airport to watch jets takeoff. To help educate the dreamers and inventors of tomorrow, like Mr. Kawabe, Honda is invested in STEAM education initiatives – learn more by visiting http://csr.honda.com/.

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We’d love to hear from you. Share your comments, questions and ideas for future topics and guests to [email protected]. Don’t forget to take a moment to follow SAE Tomorrow Today (and give us a review) on your preferred podcasting platform.

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When you’ve been studying mobility and advanced technology for over 50 years at one of the nation’s leading universities, you might just qualify as a go-to expert in the field.

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In this episode of SAE Tomorrow Today, we spoke with the legendary Dr. Alain Kornhauser, Professor, Operations Research & Financial Engineering, and Chair, Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering, Princeton University.

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With a career that has spanned over half a century, Dr. Kornhauser has been studying the possibilities of rapid transit in the urban environment since the 1970s. As the progenitor of the Princeton Transportation Network Model, he was one of the early proponents of leveraging Geographic Information Systems in the study of transportation systems, and his work has had a significant effect on the North American freight railroad system. Among the many highlights of his career, he founded ALK Technologies, Inc. which brought to market the roadway and railway systems digital map database credited as being used by the majority of North American railroad and trucking companies. Among his more recent endeavors, he has turned his focus on autonomous taxi and urban transit to enable more widespread mobility.

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In the discussion that follows, Dr. Kornhauser shared his thoughts on recent developments in the autonomous market, his experiences leading the Princeton team in several DARPA Challenges, how his career trajectory towards autonomy has developed over time, and where he sees the future of mobility headed. School’s now in session.

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We’d love to hear from you. Share your comments, questions and ideas for future topics and guests to [email protected]. Don’t forget to take a moment to follow SAE Tomorrow Today (and give us a review) on your preferred podcasting platform.

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What if you could test hundreds of thousands of traffic and road scenarios before your autonomous vehicles ever even touched asphalt? Imagine billions of miles and an untold number of road events encountered in the virtual world before your car or truck even left the factory floor.

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Talk about a head start when it comes to safety and efficiency.

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Using a comprehensive suite of products created from the best practices in software development, the minds at Applied Intuition work with clients to design virtual test environments that simulate everything the road can throw at them. They are creating a world where software-enabled vehicles are an integral part of society across all industries where there are vehicles – roads, yes, but also factories and ports as well.

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In this episode of SAE Tomorrow Today, Qasar Younis, Co-Founder and CEO, and Peter Ludwig, Co-Founder and CTO of Applied Intuition, discussed how they’re combining Detroit engineering know-how with Silicon Valley digital ingenuity to design differentiated solutions for customers such as VW, GM and Toyota, enabling game-changing AV development with speed and scale.

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We’d love to hear from you. Share your comments, questions and ideas for future topics and guests to [email protected]. Don’t forget to take a moment to follow SAE Tomorrow Today (and give us a review) on your preferred podcasting platform.

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Follow SAE on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Follow host Grayson Brulte on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.