A Nigerian, Jelani Aliyu, has made an important breakthrough for the automobile industry in the United States. The invention is an ultramodern electric car « Chevy Volt » described as an American Revolution by General Motors in a communiqué.
A Nigerian, Jelani Aliyu, has made an important breakthrough for the automobile industry in the United States. The invention is an ultramodern electric car « Chevy Volt » described as an American Revolution by General Motors in a communiqué.
“This battery run multi function Chevrolet Volt car is the most sophisticated electric car from GM” states the cummuniqué, published last Tuesday. “this car uses a gas run engine to generate supplementary electricity. The Volt concept known as the E-FLEX, works on petrol, ethanol, biodiesel or even hydrogene, contributing to finding a global solution towards the diversification of transport energy resources”.
The model, built under two months, got the best award for automobile invention, confirms GM, also stating that, a number of elements contributed to the electric technology that runs the engine. “the Chevy Volt which was shown at the Detroit automobile exhibition is an invention of mine” said Mr.Aliyu. “I experimented with lot of designs as well as the complete construction of my own miniature cars, both inside and out”.
A brilliant experience
According to Mr. Aliyu he studied briefly at the University of Ahmadu Bello in Zaria, where he was to study architecture, before gettting a State of Sokoto scholarship to study in the United States. In 1990 he enrolled at the College of Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan, to study automobile design. He graduated in 1994. Mr. Aliya confirmed that he received prizes from both the Ford Motor Company and Michelin.
Married with two children, Mr. Aliyu was born in 1966 in Kaduna in northern Nigeria and underwent both primary and secondary education in his home town, Sokoto. In 1997, he begun work at GM where he started out with a group working on a design termed ‘Buik Rendez-vous’ in which he was the main interior designer, that was before he was transfered to Germany to work with GM Europe in 1999. Mr. Aliyu is presently the head designer at the GM headquarters, where he works on various designs of which some can be found on the American, Canadian and European markets.
