Justin Trudeau visits the University of Windsor

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited the University of Windsor’s Centre for Hybrid Automotive Research and Green Energy (CHARGE) lab to speak with students and faculty.

The CHARGE lab is the developmental hub of all innovative technologies for electric vehicles. After this, he had a 1–hour roundtable conference with all the students currently working on the lab’s projects, followed by a 20 minutes tour of the facilities in the engineering building.

“The Prime Minister’s office did visit the university as part of the bigger tour of Windsor as well as Canada itself with a main focus on electric vehicles and Supply Chain. Windsor is currently at the hub of that supply chain, and CHARGE lab provides the infrastructure appropriate for the electrification of vehicles,” said Ivona Bil Bilovska, the CHARGE lab coordinator present at the conference.

The focus of this visit was to have an overview of the infrastructure of labs in the engineering department and the capacity it holds for production. “We currently underwent a $4 million renovation and put in the testing facilities that are state of the art. We support different industries that are working to support the electrification of vehicles. The research here is specifically geared towards electric vehicles power train and controls,” added Bilovska.

Currently, there are 13 Ph.D. students, eight master’s and four undergraduate students working in the lab. Each student is working on their projects for their thesis and collectively participates in industry projects. Individual projects are signed under confidentiality agreements until the work is done.

Areej Fatima is a 4-year student pursuing Electrical and Computer Engineering. She is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in electric machine design and optimization for electric vehicle applications. She was present at the roundtable conference with the Prime Minister.

“The Prime Minister started the conference with introductions and candid conversation about our experiences at the engineering department. He was interested to know about our projects and the kind of electric motors and technology we use. We provided him with insight into our project since we are designing prototypes of these electric vehicles. He followed up the conversation by cross-questioning us on the benefits of these projects,” said Fatima.

“The future goal for the electric vehicles built in the CHARGE lab is to provide an electric motor that is efficient and compact in size as per the industry demands,” added Fatima.

Alice Seo is a 2nd-year undergraduate student who is a research assistant under Dr. Narayan Kar. She was one of the other students present at the roundtable conference.

(Alice Seo and Areej Fatima)

Omolbanin Taqavi is another Ph.D. student here in the engineering department. She did her bachelor’s and master’s in Iran and is now doing Ph.D. here at the university in electrical machine design. She was another student present at the roundtable conference.

“I explained to him the testing system of these electric motors. We are also testing electric motors used in the current Electric Vehicle market. The Prime Minister asked us very technical and meaningful questions, showing that he had a good view of the engineering aspect,” said Taqavi.

On being asked a question by the Prime Minister why did you apply to the CHARGE lab for Ph.D., Taqavi replied, “everywhere you can do the theoretical and technical work but nowhere like here can we find the amazing facilities to test and apply to the actual industry too. We have been working with real industry projects.”

Taqavi is responsible for design optimization. She is majorly responsible for resolving constraints that are present between the designs of thermal and mechanical engineers and providing a design that is efficient, lightweight, and cost-effective in the electric vehicle industry.

Alice Seo is a 2nd-year undergraduate student who is a research assistant under Dr. Narayan Kar. She was one of the other students present at the roundtable conference.

( Omolbanin Taqavi, Areej Fatima, and Ivona Bil Bilovska)