HyundaiHyundaiRepublic of Korea, 1967 > present79 models
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-KiaKiaRepublic of Korea, 1944 > present52 models
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has started a partnership with the University of Michigan on projects to improve fuel economy and driver alertness. Graduate students from the College of Engineering and School of Kinesiology will work with Hyundai-Kia engineers to work on the projects.

“While we’ve had many collaborative efforts in the past, this partnership marks the beginning of a much longer-term and more focused relationship that will continue to grow in the coming years,” said Dr. Sung Hwan Cho, president of the Hyundai-Kia Technology Center.

One project will aim to reduce highway hypnosis – the mental state that people enter when driving great distances. The engineers will examine driver brainwaves to detect when drivers begin to pay less attention. The current way this is done is by using a camera to watch driver head and eye movements, but they believe that Electroencephalograph readings would be faster and more accurate.

The other project is studying dual pre-chamber lean-burn combustion. It will examine combustion chamber and piston dome geometry for more efficient fuel burning. The goal is to develop a single-cylinder a DPC lean-burn combustion system to be tested on the dynamometer at the tech center.

Hyundai-Kia did not give a timeline for when it believes that these projects will be complete.