around the world > Bruce Falls, Managing Director of AVL’s California Technology Center. The CAL has constructed 47 prototype whole vehicle electric and hybrid electric vehicle builds over the past few years, bringing together different areas of expertise to create concepts for the greener vehicles of the future. Ca lifornia’s Visions of the Future Bruce Falls is the Managing Director of AVL’s California Technology Center, which has been at the very cutting edge of hybrid and electrification projects for the past few years. Focus finds out more about what they do that makes them special. 1 6 F o c u s fantastic multi-disciplinary teams across the company that reflect the integrated vehicle systems approach you need in order to make real progress.” The CAL has constructed 47 prototype whole vehicle electric and hybrid electric vehicle builds over the past few years, bringing together different areas of expertise to create concepts for the greener vehicles of the future. “We’re actually completely dedicated to seeing cleaner transport because we think that it benefits everyone,” says Falls, “and it’s good that the industry has been attempting to catch up with AVL’s pioneering efforts, because it shows that something of a consensus is emerging over the fact that hybrids and electrification are the future for the automotive industry as a whole.” California is notorious for its tough emissions legislation and Falls says that this is one of the things that makes it such a good testing ground for other regulatory regimes around the world. “California sets the highest bar for emissions in the US and one of the highest in the world,” he says, “and because the state wants to minimize the impact that vehicles have on the environment that gives us an opportunity to make sure that we’re completely on top of our game here. And if we know we’re getting it right here, we know it’ll work elsewhere. In Detroit and perhaps the rest of the world California is sometimes viewed as a regulatory problem, but I think that we need an attitude adjustment on this – tough regulation can be good for the industry.” < Es It is almost five years since Bruce Falls set up the AVL California Technology Center (CAL) in Lake Forest, just south of Los Angeles near the Pacific coast. California, home to Hollywood, Silicon Valley and now many emerging green technology companies, has long been conceiving dreams and visions that have gained global influence. The CAL fits in to this visionary category. “We started out in 2007 with a core group of engineers who had experience in alternative fuels and advanced technologies, electric vehicles and hybrid technology,” he says. AVL saw the strategic importance of having a California facility to support these advanced technology initiatives. “At the beginning the projects we were involved with were most limited to CAL resources, but now we have
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