The School of Automotive Engineering is a distinguished college of the university, established in 1958. With a long history and a comprehensive disciplinary system, it is one of the three institutions in China that pioneered and continuously offered automotive programs for 60 years. The college offers four undergraduate programs: Vehicle Engineering, Energy and Power Engineering, Automotive Service Engineering, and Energy Storage Science and Engineering. Among them, Vehicle Engineering is a national first-class undergraduate program, a national characteristic program, a pilot program for the Ministry of Education’s Outstanding Engineer Initiative, and has passed engineering education accreditation. Energy and Power Engineering is a national first-class undergraduate program and a pilot program for the Outstanding Engineer Initiative. Automotive Service Engineering is a pilot program for the Outstanding Engineer Initiative, a provincial first-class program in Hubei, and has passed engineering education accreditation. Energy Storage Science and Engineering is a newly approved interdisciplinary engineering program in 2021.
The college hosts four academic doctoral and master’s degree programs: Power Engineering and Engineering Thermophysics (first-level discipline), Vehicle Engineering (second-level discipline), Automotive Application Engineering (second-level discipline), and Intelligent Electric Vehicle Engineering (second-level discipline). It also offers two professional doctoral and master’s degree programs in Mechanical Engineering and Energy Power, as well as two postdoctoral research stations in Mechanical Engineering and Power Engineering and Engineering Thermophysics. Power Engineering and Engineering Thermophysics and Vehicle Engineering are key disciplines in Hubei Province. The college leads the interdisciplinary field of “Key Technologies for New Energy and Intelligent Connected Vehicles,” which is one of the six key areas under the university’s national “Double First-Class” initiative. The college is a key construction unit of the Hubei Province’s “Intelligent Manufacturing and New Energy Vehicles” advantageous and characteristic discipline cluster.
The college is home to one national research base (State Key Laboratory of Super Alloys and Application Technology) and six provincial and ministerial research bases, including the Discipline Innovation and Talent Introduction Base for New Energy Vehicle Science and Key Technologies, Hubei Key Laboratory for Modern Automotive Component Technology, Hubei Research Center for New Energy ＆ Intelligent Connected Vehicle, Hubei Key Laboratory for Fuel Cells, Hubei Collaborative Innovation Center for Automotive Component Technology, and Hubei Industrial Technology Innovation Base for Green Design, Manufacturing, and Testing of Automotive Components. The college has jointly established the Wuhan Institute of Artificial Intelligence and New Energy Vehicle Industrial Technology (Excellence Academy) with Wuhan City, the Suizhou-Wuhan University of Technology Industrial Research Institute with Suizhou City, and national and provincial engineering practice education demonstration centers with automotive companies such as SAIC-GM-Wuling and Dongfeng. It has also established a PACE Center with General Motors (USA) and a research and training center with Ricardo (UK). The college has close talent cultivation and technological cooperation with institutions such as Imperial College London and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The “Key Technology Research for New Energy and Intelligent Vehicles” international cooperative talent cultivation project (CSC Project), based on these partnerships, was funded by the China Scholarship Council in 2019 and received continued support in 2022. In 2021, the college hosted the National Graduate Forum for the Automotive Engineering Discipline.
The college currently has 172 faculty and staff, including 130 full-time teachers, 34 professors, and 56 associate professors. There are 55 doctoral supervisors and 111 master’s supervisors, with 93% of full-time teachers holding doctoral degrees. The college boasts multiple recipients of prestigious national talent programs, such as the National Outstanding Youth Fund, State Council Special Allowance, “Hundred-Thousand-Ten Thousand Talent Project,” “Young Yangtze River Scholar,” and National Excellent Youth Fund. It also includes recipients of provincial talent programs, such as the first-level Hubei High-End Talent Cultivation Plan, Hubei Teaching Master, and Hubei Master Studio Host. The college has built an outstanding educational talent support system led by four academicians as “strategic scientists,” two “chief discipline professors,” two “characteristic program responsible professors,” five “globally recruited professors,” three “technological innovation talents,” and nine “young outstanding talents.”
The School of Automotive Engineering is one of the largest automotive colleges in China, with 2,058 undergraduates, 1,054 master’s students, and 296 doctoral students, totaling 3,408 students. The college has trained nearly 20,000 students, with an employment rate exceeding 95% over the past five years. Over 85% of graduates work in the automotive industry, and more than 80% are employed by Fortune 500 companies or strategic emerging industries. Graduates are primarily employed by well-known domestic and international automotive OEMs and component companies, making significant contributions to the transformation and rapid development of the automotive industry, particularly in China.
(Data as of April 2025)
