Form August 28 to August 30, 2014, the fourth international conference on future automotive powertrain system co-sponsored by SJTU and Toyota was successfully held in SJTU. More than 50 experts from home and abroad presented the conference and delved into the details over the theme of the conference, namely "Challenges and routes in improving the economic performance of automotive powertrain system and controlling harmful discharges". 

Tao LIU, director from the Engineering and Materials Science Department of National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), presented a welcome speech and pointed out that intensively study on basic subjects like studying combustion issues on internal combustion engine would facilitate the process on energy conservation and emission reduction. Starting from the development point view on automotive fuel in the future, Zhen HUANG, vice president of SJTU made an opening remark with his focus on how to improve the economic performance of automotive powertrain system and control the emissions of pollutants efficiently. Mr. HUANG said, the idea of fuel design illustrated a great potential for conducting researches on combustion and emission control. Beginning with the starting point on challenges and policies China encountered in automotive emission controlling, Yan DING, deputy director from Vehicle Emission Control Center of Ministry of Environmental Protection, made an explanation over the current car pollution status, major achievements and policies could be adopted in the future. 

Moreover, fascinating keynote addresses by experts, including but not limited to Prof. Hua ZHAO from University of Brunel, Dr. Quanlu WANG from Argonne National Laboratory, Prof. Jin Kusaka from Waseda University, Dr. Rijing ZHAN from Southwest Research Institute, USA and Prof. Hongming XU, were presented to audience on site. 

Experts had two bits of advice for the challenges and routes in terms of improving the economic performance of automotive powertrain system and controlling harmful discharges. On one hand, China should enact and carry out tougher regulations on vehicle emissions, and establish a testing cycling which can better align with the current national circumstance; On the other hand, it is also possible to combine the fuel technology, in-cylinder combustion technology and Post-processing techniques together to improve the economic performance of automotive powertrain system and control harmful discharges.