The Attorney General’s Automobile Emissions Research and Technology Fund awarded $2 million to the University of California, Riverside. UCR will use the grant to study the impact of industrial goods movement on air quality of the Inland Empire.

The Defeat Devices by Volkswagen

The funding for this grant has an interesting history. It was in 2016 that California sued Volkswagen for using “defeat devices”. Essentially, the devices allowed cars to recognize when they were undergoing emissions testing and switched the cars into lower-operation modes.

The company admitted that 11 million of its vehicles were equipped with software that was used to cheat on emissions tests, reported the New York Times. 

It was in May 2014 that researchers revealed the results of WV’s on-road testing. It showed 40 times the pollution these cars emitted compared to when they were tested for emissions. Somehow the car manufacturer managed to reduce emissions during the testing phase.

Various models of Volkswagen were fitted with the software technology that suppressed the cars’ emissions during testing phase. From Jetta and Beetle to Passat and A3,

As part of the settlement, the company agreed to provide funds which would ultimately improve the state’s capacity to fund research.

UCR’s Active Role in the Local Innovation Ecosystem

UCR plays an important role in helping inventors, entrepreneurs, and students to benefit from each other. We reported that UCR obtained $900K in funding for the deserving and ExCITE Riverside is one among them.

It is also holding a Riverside based startup angel investment summit called the Angel Summit 2021.

The UCR reported that “the Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering Center for Environmental Research and Technology, or CE-CERT, will lead this project, as part of its overall OMEGA Initiative: Objective Measurement/Monitoring/Mitigation of Emissions from Goods Movement and Impacts on Air Quality“. 

Holly Ober, UCR

“This research initiative is critical to our local community, as our region continues to grow,” said CE-CERT director Matthew Barth. “These funds help us kick off our multiyear OMEGA initiative, where we get to apply our latest research and technology to improve the environment we live in.”

CE-CERT director Matthew Barth.

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Author: Sharjeel

Sharjeel joined Startempire Wire as emerging technologies editor. Earlier, he worked at Silicon Canals, a leading English language technology media source for the Benelux and wider Europe. He covered the European technology and startup ecosystem digging into latest funding rounds of startups.