Newswise — A Missouri University of Science and Technology team is one of 17 university groups from the United States and Canada selected to compete in a three-year competition, to design a more eco-friendly vehicle, announced today by the U.S. Department of Energy, General Motors and Natural Resources Canada.
EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge will test students' abilities to re-engineer a Saturn VUE to achieve improved fuel economy and reduced greenhouse gas emissions, while retaining the vehicle's performance and consumer appeal.
Students will design and build advanced propulsion solutions that are based on the vehicle categories from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) zero emissions vehicle (ZEV) regulations. They will be encouraged to explore a variety of cutting-edge clean vehicle solutions, including full-function electric, range-extended electric, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and fuel cell technologies. In addition, they will incorporate lightweight materials into the vehicles, improve aerodynamics and utilize alternative fuels such as ethanol, biodiesel and hydrogen.
"With our emphasis on alternative energy research, the ecoCAR challenge is a natural fit for Missouri S&T," says Chancellor John F. Carney III. "The knowledge and experience gained from this project and other design competitions better prepare our students to address our world's environmental and energy issues."
During the three-year program, General Motors will provide production vehicles, vehicle components, seed money, technical mentoring and operational support. The U.S. Department of Energy and its research and development facility, Argonne National Laboratory, will provide competition management, team evaluation and technical and logistical support. Through sponsoring such advanced vehicle engineering competitions, GM and the U.S. Department of Energy are developing the next generation of scientists and engineers.
"We're excited to see what these student engineers will develop over the next three years," says Beth Lowery, General Motors vice president of environment, energy and safety policy. "The objectives of EcoCAR are right in line with GM's strategy."
"EcoCAR is the latest in a series of Department-sponsored student competitions that will foster the training of the next generation of engineers who will develop the clean vehicle technology solutions to enhance our energy security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions," says Ed Wall, DOE's manager of the vehicle technologies program. "It will be exciting to watch as the students work over the next three years to design, build, test and showcase their vehicles."
In the first year, teams will develop their vehicle designs through the use of GM's Global Vehicle Development Process " the modeling and simulation process currently used to develop all of GM's vehicles. Sophisticated hardware in the loop (HIL) and software in the loop (SIL) systems will be utilized, and teams will be challenged to model and simulate the integration of their subsystems into the overall vehicle design. The emphasis is on optimizing a practical solution that will meet the goals of the competition.
During the second and third years of the competition, students will build the vehicle and continue to refine, test, and improve vehicle operation. At the end of years two and three, the re-engineered student vehicle prototypes will compete in a week-long competition of engineering tests. These tests will be similar to the tests GM conducts to determine a prototype's readiness for production. The Greenhouse gas, Regulated Emissions, and Energy in Transportation (GREET) model, developed at Argonne National Laboratory, will be used to assess a well-to-wheel analysis of the greenhouse gas impacts of each technology approach the teams select.
Additional information about EcoCAR is available online at http://www.ecoCARchallenge.org.
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