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Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest

The conflict of interest policy of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (http://www.nationalacademies.org/coi) prohibits the appointment of an individual to a committee authoring a Consensus Study Report if the individual has a conflict of interest that is relevant to the task to be performed. An exception to this prohibition is permitted if the National Academies determines that the conflict is unavoidable and the conflict is publicly disclosed. When the committee that authored this report was established, a determination of whether there was a conflict of interest was made for each committee member given the individual’s circumstances and the task being undertaken by the committee. A determination of a conflict of interest for an individual is not an assessment of that individual’s actual behavior or character or ability to act objectively despite the conflicting interest.

Daniel Kapp has a conflict of interest in relation to his service on the Committee on Assessment of Technologies for Improving Fuel Economy of Light-Duty Vehicles—Phase 3, because he owns Ford Motor Company stocks, and because he has a consulting relationship with AVL Powertrain Engineering, a supplier of engineering services to automobile manufacturers.

Ulrich Kranz has a conflict of interest in relation to his service on the Committee on Assessment of Technologies for Improving Fuel Economy of Light-Duty Vehicles—Phase 3, because he is the chief technology officer at Canoo, an electric vehicle start-up company.

Deidre Strand has a conflict of interest in relation to her service on the Committee on Assessment of Technologies for Improving Fuel Economy of Light-Duty Vehicles—Phase 3, because she is the chief scientific officer of Wildcat Discovery Technologies, a battery material discovery firm.

The National Academies determined that the experience and expertise of the above individuals was needed for the committee to accomplish the task for which it was established. The National Academies could not find other available individuals with the equivalent experience and expertise who did not have a conflict of interest. Therefore, the National Academies concluded that the above conflicts were unavoidable and publicly disclosed them through the National Academies Projects and Activities Repository (NAPAR; http://webapp.nationalacademies.org/napar/).