Andrew A. Frank - PHEV Research & Development

PHEV Research & Development

Dr. Frank and his teams of students have been experimenting with various advanced vehicle technologies since 1971. He constructed his first Hybrid Electric Vehicle at the Electrical Eng Dept. of the University of Wisconsin–Madison with his students in 1971 with the only hybrid electric entry into the URBAN CAR Competition of 1972. He then was able to secure a US DOT contract to design and construct with Ford Motor Company help, the first Flywheel drive cars with a mechanical Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) for better fuel economy and higher performance.

Research into flywheel drive was continued to 1985 when prof Frank transferred to the Mechanical Engineering dept. of the University of California-Davis. He began at UCDavis by entering the SAE Supermileage Contest run by the US-AAA and SAE with his students and began to create a new concept of teaching mechanical engineering where he took the student machine shop from a dying skill to a fully staffed and capable machine shop with automated machines and research and teaching to support it. The teaching model has been essentially copied all over the country and is currently standard in many mechanical engineering curriculum. Part of the reason is that the student contests entered by UCDavis were very successful and the students manage first place in Super Mileage all over the country and Canada, providing wide visibility to UCDavis. In 1991 he and his teams of students set world records of 3313 mpg on gasoline and 2200 mpg on M85 in two separate cars. Since second place was so far below, it was attributed to error for many years. The Gasoline record was finally broken by 50 mpg 10 years later and the world record M85 still stands today. In 1991 The USDOE created a University contest to compete with the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (US-PNGV) program to design modern cars that could triple fuel economy to 80 mpg. In 1992 and 1993 he and his students demonstrated a Plug in hybrid vehicle that achieved 72 mpg nearly achieving the 80 mpg target by the PNGV program. In 1996 his team of students converted a Ford Taurus to a PHEV in the USDOE Hybrid Electric Vehicle Challenge to 15 Universities across the country and Canada. The UCDavis vehicle achieved 68 mpg as demonstrated on a trip from Detroit to Washington DC. He and his team then created PHEV automatic transmission models with more efficient mechanical Continuously Variable Transmissions CVTs' and also full size PHEV SUV's that could double fuel economy. The last University project was in 2005 with a Chevrolet Equinox converted to a 4 wheel drive system with double the fuel economy and equal or better performance with no loss if interior space and 40 miles of All Electric Range in a PHEV configuration. In the late nineties General Motors contracted Dr. Frank to convert an EV 1 electric car to plug-in hybrid. Dr. Frank's projects for US DOE and US DOT while directing students have created vehicles that have set world records in fuel economy with the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). He has been a member of SAE since 1965. Dr Frank has been a consultant for the automotive industry and has had issued many patents that have been assigned to his consultancies. Dr. Frank is a member of the CalCars initiative.