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New automobile testing facility to be built this year at the Cyber Park |
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Alternative fuel research and off-road vehicle testing are part of a North Carolina company’s decision to expand its operations and move into the Cyber Park.
Advanced Vehicle Research Center (AVRC) will build a 20,000-square-foot headquarters this fall at a 13-acre site on Stinson Drive, where research into ethanol and other alternative-fuel technologies will take place. The company also will build a closed-loop, natural terrain track on a 63-acre site behind the headquarters, where it will test manned and unmanned military and off-road vehicles.
AVRC's Toyota Prius hybrids can run 30 miles on a single charge, then switch over to fuel averaging 100 mpg
AVRC plans to invest $3.5 million in the project, which will bring 30 full-time jobs to the area that have an average salary of $50,000 per year.
At the announcement of the new venture Monday, Danville City Manager Jerry Gwaltney said the regional cooperation between Pittsylvania County and the city was responsible for bringing AVRC to the Dan River Region. “This is an exciting time for both Pittsylvania County and the city of Danville,” he said, “and our Regional Facilities Authority.”
Richard “Dick” Dell, executive director of AVRC, said he first visited the area when he came to see the Institute for Advanced Learning & Research three or four years ago. “I’m really pleased to be one of the first corporate citizens to be in (the Cyber Park), to be able to partner with the Institute on a number of research projects,” Dell said. He said the company is about 50 percent technology/research and 50 percent education. “The two are inextricably tied together,” Dell said. “We are in a situation today where technology is actually running ahead of education and our ability to train people.”
The company brought several “samples” of its work to the announcement, including a bright-red Corvette that runs on ethanol, a plug-in hybrid Toyota Prius and an all-electric Mazda RX7. More than 400 guests attended the event, held at the Stratford Conference Center.
About 200 of the guests were students from high schools in Danville, Pittsylvania County, Henry County and Martinsville.
Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors Chairman Coy Harville told the students, “You are the future of our area. We hope you take the day seriously and remember it. This is the way our future is headed.”
Congressman Virgil Goode, R-5th, said AVRC is the “wave of the future” and can help break the hold gasoline has on the economy. “We’ve got to take a new direction and a new course of action,” Goode said, thanking Dell for “being with us as we work together to free the United States of America from the Middle East, from Venezuela and from OPEC so that we are free of fossil fuels. “None of the money that goes to put ethanol in a vehicle is going to have to be strained through the Middle East or strained through South America. It can all stay circulating in this country, and that’s what we need to improve our economy in so many different way.”
The Cyber Park is a joint venture between the city and county. In addition to the Institute and the proposed AVRC, it also houses Danville Community College’s Regional Center for Advanced Technology and Training.
Danville Register & Bee www.registerbee.com Contact Denice Thibodeau at
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or (434) 791-7985.
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