Working Toward “Virtually Zero” Motor Vehicle Fatalities
SAE Alberta held an in-person and virtual presentation by Jeff Dix of Nissan Technical Center North America on crash safety. The video link is here but will only be available until July 11th.
Presentation Abstract: Motor vehicle crashes are one of the leading causes of fatalities in the United States. This lecture will discuss the challenges in pursuing a future goal of “Virtually Zero” motor vehicle fatalities with an emphasis on vehicle safety features. An overview of the factors that affect vehicle safety and the technologies that can be applied to address those factors; as well as testing needed to develop the passive safety of today’s vehicles will be presented.
Speaker Biography: Jeff is a Senior Principal Engineer in Safety Engineering at Nissan Technical Center North America. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from GMI Engineering and Management Institute (now Kettering University) where he graduated with honors, and has 25 years’ experience in developing vehicle safety with extensive experience in front and side impact, as well as rollover testing. His current responsibilities include advanced development in passive safety. Jeff has a working knowledge of the regulations that affect the safety development of today’s vehicles. He is an active member of SAE, having authored several technical papers, and is on two SAE committees.
Alberta Aviation Museum Tour (2023-03-29)
On April 29th, 2023, SAE Alberta members toured the Alberta Aviation Museum in Edmonton. The recording is here.
Edmonton Transit Service Electrification Fleet Tour (2023-03-24)
Unfortunately, there was no recording of this event, however, Andrew Happer and Henry Owusu were able to take pictures of the garage that he kindly shared for posting.




GoElectric Tour (2022-11-16)
As a reminder, SAE Alberta held its first in-person event since 2020. GoElectric Vehicle Corporation (www.goelectricyyc.com) hosted a technical tour of their facility for SAE Alberta on Wednesday, November 16, 2022. The GoElectric team, including Co-Founder David, showcased electric vehicle-related technologies, its facility, and the project the team is working on. The video of the live broadcast is here.
UVAD Presentation (2022-10-13)
SAE Alberta’s October Technical Meeting on Thursday, October 13, 2022 featured Dr. Bryan Godbolt, the Vice President of Engineering and Operations at Unmanned Vehicle Applied Dynamics Inc. (UVAD) who will discuss unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) including regulatory and airspace integration challenges, engineering insights in the UAV space, and the development and use of flight control and autopilot systems. The video of the presentation is here.
Dr. Godbolt received his Ph.D. from the University of Alberta in 2013. The topic of his doctoral research was nonlinear control of a helicopter UAV. He also completed a Master of Engineering Science in Control Systems (2009), a Bachelor of Engineering Science in Computer Engineering (2007), and a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics (2006) from the University of Western Ontario. From 2013 to 2021, Dr. Godbolt worked for QinetiQ Target Systems (formerly Meggitt Training Systems Canada). Initially his role was to design the flight control laws for a helicopter UAV. From 2017 to 2021 he was the Director of Advanced Development Programs. In this role he led the development of a supersonic, rocket-powered UAV. Since 2021 he has been the Vice President of Engineering and Operations for Unmanned Vehicle Applied Dynamics (UVAD). In his present role, his mandate is to lead the development of a new generation of reliable yet attritable UAVs using a modern methodology consistent with the emergence of an aerospace renaissance.
AGM 2022
The SAE Alberta Section’s Annual General Meeting was on Thursday, June 23, 2022, at 11:45 AM. It was our honour to feature a pre-recorded technical presentation by Vice-Chair Lee Krywitsky on the “Till-E – Electric Rototiller Project.” The video of the presentation is here.
BC Highway 5 Repair Webinar (2022-06-08)
On June 8th at 1pm MDT, SAE Alberta hosted a webinar in which we were fortunate to invite John Babineau from the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure of British Columbia. Mr. Babineau discussed the repair effort to restore BC Highway 5 that sustained heavy flood-related damages in late 2021 and had to be shut down. The video of the presentation is here.
AMTA Presentation (2022-03-17)
The SAE Alberta Section held a lunchtime technical session titled “Tales from the Cab: Discovering Innovations in the Trucking Industry” on March 17, 2022. The event presenters were Terri Johnson—Research and Innovation Senior Coordinator of the Alberta Motor Transport Association (AMTA)—and Dr. Mahdi Shahbakhti of the University of Alberta. The presentation discussed how the AMTA launched Canada’s first on-road testing of the truck platooning project. The presentation also covered how Dr. Shahbakhti’s team investigates vehicle testing for truck platooning and energy consumption, emissions analysis. The recording of the presentation is here. Enjoy!
You can find details of AMTA’s truck platooning project at https://amta.ca/what-we-do/cooperative-truck-platooning-system-ctps/.
SAE Cumberland Valley Presentation (2021-11-04)
Below are the slides from the SAE Cumberland Valley Section webinar “Autonomous Systems: What Can Possibly Go Wrong” presented by Tony Dahbura, Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins University Institute for Assured Autonomy.
AGM 2021 (2021-06-17)
SAE Alberta held our Annual General Meeting from 6:45 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 17, 2021, via a virtual Zoom meeting. We had some informal networking at the start of the session followed by our annual business meeting and a short presentation on the Alberta Zero Emissions Truck Electrification Collaboration (AZETEC) by the Alberta Motor Transport Association (AMTA). The recording is here and key documentation is below.
Lyft/Toyota Mirai/HTEC Presentation (2021-05-19)
The SAE Alberta Section teamed up with the SAE British Columbia on a technical presentation on May 19, 2021. Lyft Inc., Toyota Canada Inc., and the Hydrogen Technology and Energy Corporation gave a seminar on their initiative to provide ridesharing using a fleet of Toyota Mirai(s): hydrogen-powered zero-emission vehicles. Even though there was no recording, below are some promotional materials that the presenters shared.
Ford Mustang Mach-E Presentation (2021-02-11)
We hosted a technical presentation on the Ford Mustang Mach-E electric vehicle on February 18, 2021, at 7 PM. We are thankful to the generous support of Team Ford, an Edmonton-based Ford dealership, for making this possible. The video of this presentation is here and some supplemental information on the Ford Mustang Mach-E is below.
The 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E Emergency Response Guide MCS-5745 is available here.
The SAE technical information on the Ford Mustang Mach-E is available here.
Webinar on Lubricants by Imperial Oil (2020-11-19)
On November 19, 2020, we hosted a webinar by Brooke Peaden and Daniel Vallee of Imperial Oil Limited. The topic of the session is “Recent Developments in Automotive Lubricants”. Here is the video of the webinar.