TVA turns over 1-mile test track to UTC, ATTI

June 9th, 2006

From the Chattanooga Times (Free Press, TN) June 02, 2006

A 25-year-old test track has a new pair of drivers who promise to reactivate the facility to put Chattanooga in the fast-lane for alternative-fuel vehicles.

The Tennessee Valley Authority on Thursday turned over its one-mile, oval track near the Chickamauga Dam to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and the Advanced Transportation Technology Institute, or ATTI, in Chattanooga.

UTC Chancellor Roger Brown said the 52-acre complex off Amnicola Highway should help UTC’s engineering college attract more students and enhance its research capabilities.

“We want to partner with others in our community to help us meet the challenge of developing alternative transportation,” Dr. Brown said.

Steve Leach, Chattanooga’s public works administrator and chairman of ATTI, said the property transfer “is a great opportunity to recover this lost jewel” at a time of increased focus on new forms of transportation. “This is another asset that can help make Chattanooga the living laboratory for alternative fuels and transportation,” he said.

TVA built the track with $500,000 of federal funds in 1981 as part of the utility’s early research into electric-powered cars. The program was suspended in 1988, however, when former Ford and Nissan executive Marvin Runyon was named chairman of TVA and questioned the value of the battery-powered vehicles.

Bill Baxter, another former TVA chairman who continues to serve on the TVA board, acknowledged that TVA’s early research at the track “had some spotty results.”

But UTC and ATTI plan to use the track to try out several new types of alternative fuels, including the early tests for a hydrogen fuel cell a Gallatin, Tenn., company plans to put into CARTA’s downtown shuttle buses within the next year.

“The biggest advantage of this track is that it allows us to control test new technologies,” said John Powell, executive director for the Advanced Transportation Technology Institute. “When we put the hydrogen fuel cell into CARTA’s 22-foot bus instead of initially running it up and down the streets of Chattanooga to test it out and make sure everything works OK, we can bring it out here first.”

U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, RTenn., said he pushed TVA to transfer control of the largely unused track to help UTC, ATTI and others reactivate the facility for research and industry recruitment. Rep. Wamp, who was among a group of local leaders that met last year with Toyota’s top executives, said the test track can be a drawing card for automotive suppliers and assembly plants looking to locate in Chattanooga.

“This facility can be a feeder for the technologies and the breakthroughs for all types of next-generation vehicles,” Rep. Wamp said during a dedication ceremony at the track. “We may end up with an automotive manufacturer in Chattanooga, or we may end up with an electric moped manufacturer or a component manufacturer for overthe-road trailers like we have at U.S. Xpress (Enterprises) or Covenant Transport.”

The test track, Mr. Wamp said, could be a valuable proving ground for any such business.

E-mail Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com

Entry Filed under: Test Labs