New technology — emerging from the University group that brought the long-running success of the electric-powered racecar known as the Electric Falcon — holds more than just environmental benefits.

The development of a patented hybrid booster drive — a propulsion system powered by a combination of electricity and diesel fuel– by the University’s Electric Vehicle Institute will also be easy on the pocketbook.

The system, which is targeted for use in vehicles that make frequent stops, like shuttle buses and delivery vehicles, boasts a savings of 30 percent in fuel costs, said Barry Piersol, director of the EVI and assistant to the dean of the College of Technology. With oil costs on the rise, their HBD system fills a niche missed by other technology, he said.

The University’s Board of Trustees approved an agreement Friday to license the HBD system exclusively to Goshen Coach of Elkhart, Ind. for testing and possible commercial use in small transit buses. The agreement marks the first of its kind at the University, officials said.

For Piersol, seeing the University’s HBD system reach another phase in the journey to commercial use is exciting.

“This is one neat, environmentally friendly vehicle,” he said. “I’ve always said it’s been our hope to get to commercialization and it’s pretty fantastic that we’re there now. That is what we have been striving for.”

The development of the patented system started with a case of people being in the right place at the right time, Piersol said. Eight years ago, colleagues in the College, along with students who worked on the Electric Falcon, were displaying the racecar at a celebration for the Lincoln Electric Company Motor Division in Cleveland. An employee with NASA saw the car and requested the University’s help as an Ohio partner to design a hybrid system to be used on a small transit bus.

EVI members Jeff Major, chief engineer, Anthony Palumbo, chief of operations and Aaron Bloomfield, data acquisition engineer worked on the project.

The group got their HBD system patented by 2000, and received several grants — one of $950,000 from NASA in April 2002 — to continue with the project, Piersol said.

After March 1, Goshen plans to produce five prototype, HBD-equipped shuttles to test their viability on the market as part of the first phase of the agreement. The Federal Transit Administration have already approved the sale of these first five buses, University officials said.

EVI has already put the system inside one shuttle bus and one delivery truck and has done its own testing of the product.

An identical experience in the environment-friendly vehicles is important if the product is ever to be marketed nationwide, Piersol said.

“For this to be accepted by the bus and truck industry, they want it to be transparent to the driver and passengers,” he said. “They don’t want to learn to drive a new vehicle.”

And according to Ernest Savage, dean of the College of Technology, EVI has already accomplished this.

“We’ve created a device that no one would really know you would be using a green vehicle when you were riding on it except for the people who were paying the bills,” he said at Friday’s meeting.

Like the Electric Falcon, this project puts BGSU on par with some of the country’s largest engineering schools and commercial manufactures of hybrid vehicle systems, Piersol said.

“We can play ball in the big leagues,” he said.

The agreement with Goshen Coach could benefit the local economy as well.

The Board of Trustees agreed Friday to reduce the licensing fee if Goshen Coach selects a Bowling Green company to manufacture and supply the entire HBD propulsion system. And “there’s already movement on this,” Piersol said, with bidding for the project underway and one Bowling Green company, so far, taking interest. Piersol was hesitant to name the company last night.

It’s important that Goshen identifies a company to produce the HBD “kits,” Piersol said, because the group simply does not have the capability to build them in large quantities.

“EVI is not in the business of mass producing these systems,” he said. “We’re a research and development institute.”

What their job does involve is problem solving. And they’ve had plenty of practice with this project, Piersol said.

“The amount of problems that we have solved were tremendous,” he said. “What we do is problem-solving. Constantly we’re doing that and asking ‘How do we make it better?'”

And that won’t change as testing of the system continues, Piersol said. EVI would like to get fuel savings of the system up to 45 percent, he said.

Before the sixth vehicle is produced, one of the five prototypes will be tested and evaluated for final approval through the Federal Transit Administration’s testing center in Altoona, Pa.

“I think this is going to do nothing but get better,” Piersol said. “Our goal has been each day to improve fuel efficiency. By no means are we done … we’ll continue to make it better.”