When Dr. Peihua Gu describes his vision of the car of the future, his words carry an authority beyond his academic credits, which are numerous.

Yes, he’s head of the University of Calgary’s mechanical engineering department. Yes, he occupies a plum chair, endowed by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC).

Brandon Ferguson
Peihua Gu credits his experience as a shipbuilder for helping him on car project.

But weightier still is Dr. Gu’s pedigree as a dues-paying, sleeves-to-the-elbow rivet jockey.

Now a top Canadian researcher, invited to introduce the auto industry to fresh design concepts as part of the AUTO21 federal initiative, Dr. Gu got his start as a creator and operator of machine tools in Chinese shipyards.

“I had to build special machines for building the big ships, 10,000 tonnes,” he said. “That practical experience gave me a valuable perspective.”

David Lazarowych, Business Edge
Elizabeth Cannon draws on her GPS expertise to plan revolutionary navigational features.

This rare combination of theoretical expertise and on-the-job proficiency made the ex-shipbuilder a natural for AUTO21, which has welcomed Dr. Gu to its design team.

Other U of C heavyweights on the AUTO21 team include geomatics engineer Elizabeth Cannon, a much-decorated professor who last week received NSERC’s prestigious Steacie Fellowship to continue research in global positioning systems (GPS); and political scientist Anthony Perl.

AUTO21 stands for Automobile of the 21st Century. It’s a multi-million-dollar Industry Canada R&D project being administered from Windsor, Ont.

As such, it could be readily dismissed as another exercise in federal day-dreaming.

Private industry isn’t laughing, though. It’s taking this thing seriously. Why else would the corporate suits pick up a significant portion of the tab?

For Canadian automakers seeking to get a leg up on the global competition, AUTO21 offers the chance to tap into the mental megawatts generated by 200-plus professional thinkers. Experts representing 27 Canadian campuses are already studying new directions in vehicle and environmental safety, fuels and emissions, electronic navigational sensors and systems, manufacturing and repair innovations.

Early response from the Oshawa-Windsor automotive axis has been enthusiastic, reports Gu.

“We presented our first paper in Montreal last November. Executives from Ford Motor Co. were there, and said hearing our ideas made their whole trip worthwhile. Very encouraging,” he said.

Gu and the rest of AUTO21’s design group share a vision of an ultra-light, compact urban vehicle even the mechanically challenged can assemble or upgrade at home.

“In a way, you could own the car forever. This will be a modular design – easy assembly, easy disassembly,” he said.

Electrical systems, steering assemblies, power trains and power sources would be available in self-contained modules, to be added, subtracted, replaced and upgraded at will, the way you plug in a whack of new memory to your personal computer.

Mechanics won’t tinker with specific gears, valves and sprockets.

Instead, replacement modules will be pulled from shelves, and popped on like chunks of an oversize Lego set.

And while other Canadian deep-thinkers wrestle with alternative fuels and workable substitutes for the internal-combustion engine, Gu’s colleague Cannon is planning space-age navigational methods for smarter cars in tomorrow’s people-packed megalopolis.

Cannon was part of the committee that pitched this proposal to Industry Canada in the first place. She sees her contribution as a natural extension of her award-winning research with satellite navigation tools.

“We already have systems in cars, particularly in Japan, that allow you to navigate between points A and B,” said Cannon.

“They work reasonably well. Now we’re at the point of saying: ‘What else can we do?’ ”

One answer may well be autonomous hands-free driving, via automatic pilot.

Or . . .

“If I had a database of the locations of various stores and services, I could program my system to navigate my way there,” she suggested.

“If I had a wireless Internet connection to my vehicle, providing me with anything from real-time traffic information to what the latest specials are at the IGA store, I could make my decisions based on the data.”

Cannon’s field of interest also includes managing high volumes of highway traffic by means of “collaborative” driving systems. For instance, sensor-equipped vehicles would allow drivers to instantly calculate the (presumably minuscule) distance between each car on a clogged freeway.

If AUTO21 bears fruit, this ambitious, collaborative exercise in product development could lead to new jobs and fresh investment on a grand scale in this country.

Now you know why the 500,000 Canadians who work in the industry aren’t laughing either.