Ir Prof. CHAN Ching-chuen, SBS, Distinguished Chair Professor of Electric Vehicles and Smart Energy and Director of the Research Centre for Electric Vehicles at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), delivered the 20th PAIR Distinguished Lecture titled “New Journey of Energy Revolution and Automotive Revolution” on 6 May 2024. The lecture attracted more than 100 participants in person and drew an online audience of over 11,500 from different countries and regions to watch the live broadcast on multiple social media platforms, including Bilibili, WeChat, Weibo and YouTube.
The lecture commenced with a warm welcome by Prof. CHEN Qingyan, Director of PAIR, followed by a brief speaker introduction by Prof. TENG Jin-Guang, PolyU President. In his presentation, Prof. Chan explained the need to cultivate a scientific spirit and understand the philosophy of engineering. He emphasised the contributions of scientific discovery, the technological revolution and the industrial revolution to human civilisation. Next, he discussed the key issues and challenges in the energy and automotive revolutions. Prof. Chan explained the progression of the automotive revolution from electrification to connected intelligence; the friendly interaction between vehicles and power grids; and the essential integration of people, vehicles, roads and clouds. He discussed several key technologies: the electric vehicle power train, batteries and the internet of vehicles. To conclude, Prof. Chan underscored the need to integrate energy, information, transportation and humanity in order to achieve sustainable development in the midst of the energy and automotive revolutions.
