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HOUGHTON -- Hybrid electric vehicles are the undisputed future of the automotive industry, but there's still a lot of important research to be done and improvements to be made on the technology behind these vehicles.

"If the electrical system stays where it is, we're probably only 10 years away from having a lot of problems with electricity at the house level," said Wayne Weaver, an Electrical Engineering Professor at Michigan Tech.

The U.S. Department of Energy wants to support the necessary research to prevent those kinds of problems.  Last Wednesday, it was announced that two-and-a-half billion dollars in federal stimulus money would be awarded to organizations nationwide to develop the next generation of hybrid electric vehicles and batteries.  Nearly half of that money will go to companies and universities in Michigan.  Michigan Tech will be getting a grant for $2.98 million.  That money will be used to develop a curriculum in the research and production of hybrid electric vehicles.

"What’s unique about this is it'll be a degree in engineering, and these students will have taken courses across both mechanical and electrical engineering.  So they'll have more of an interdisciplinary knowledge and really that's what the vehicle is:  a mechanical system driven by electrical propulsion systems with chemistry buried in the battery," said Jeff Naber, a Mechanical Engineering Professor at Tech.

It will take about three years to develop a full curriculum for both graduate and undergraduate students.  Tech will also offer courses online aimed at helping displaced engineers learn about the new hybrid technologies and prepare them to rejoin the changing automotive industry.

"We’ll have a fleet of vehicles that the students can work on, and then the other big thing is we're developing a mobile lab where all these components will come together.  We’ll put them in a full size tractor trailer and be able to deliver this really anywhere in the country," Naber said.

The first courses under this grant will be available to Tech students this fall.