PSU and OSU helped showcase the promise of electric vehicles in Oregon on Wednesday, April 8th by hosting Nissanís EV-02 model on each campus. Nissan announced that it plans to launch the fully electric vehicle in Oregon in 2010. At PSUís Urban Center, Angus Duncan (Chair of the Oregon Global Warming Commission), Joe Barra (Director of Customer Energy Resources for PGE), John MacArthur (Sustainable Transportation Program Manager for OTREC), and Tracy Woodard (Director of Government Affairs for Nissan-USA) briefed an audience of students, staff and faculty on the emergence of electric vehicles of Oregon. On OSUís campus, University President Ed Ray ìkicked the tiresî and engineering students exhibited their own car design and construction projects, including the SAE Formula and Baja Teams and the Solar Vehicle team. Also, OSU faculty had an opportunity to brief Nissan representatives regarding their education and research programs that prepare talent and spin out technology for this new industry.
Dr. Robert Bertini and OTREC faculty and staff hosted guests from Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. on October 31. Nobuo Okubo, Senior Advisor to the Board (Technology), Ryogo Takagi, Manager of Technology Planning and Assistant to Mr. Okubo, and Hayato Akizuki, Director, Technology Planning, were given a tour of Portland transit systems and met with leaders from TriMet, the City of Portland, and Metro. They also toured the ITS Lab at PSU, and had lunch with faculty and community representatives who talked about the history of Portlandís transportation systems. They were welcomed to PSU by Interim President Michael Reardon and Vice Provost for Research William Feyerherm. They ended the day with a ride on the Portland Streetcar and Portland Aerial Tram.