Researchers in the field of land transportation are tackling the challenges of making transportation clean, environmentally-friendly, and shared head-on. The CEA Tech institutes conduct research in a very wide range of land transportation technologies and, in particular technologies designed to address precisely these challenges. The institutes' programs encompass vehicles (cars, trains, etc.), infrastructures, and the associated services (car sharing, ride sharing, and multi-modal transportation systems), but that's not all. CEA Tech also conducts research that will help make vehicle manufacturing more reliable and efficient in the Factory of the Future.

CEA Tech labs are home to research projects on vehicle electrification (enhanced magnets for electric motors), batteries, hybrid combustion-electric systems, fuel cells, and hydrogen tanks. CEA Tech infrastructure-related research includes projects on fast charging terminals, optimized multi-user vehicle charging technologies compatible with smart grids, two-way (vehicle-to-grid) charging, and more.

Since 2014, CEA Tech has either coordinated or contributed to some 20 EU Horizon 2020 research and development projects targeting road transportation. CEA Tech has also created partnerships with some of the industry's major stakeholders, including OEM Renault and Tier-1 automotive suppliers like Valeo, which integrated the CEA's Deep Manta technology—an algorithm that enables driverless cars to recognize other cars in their vicinity—into the demo car it exhibited at CES Las Vegas in 2018, and Faurecia, which is working with CEA Tech on a fuel-cell technology.