EcoCar

DETROIT--The nearly 200 students in Wayne State University's electric vehicle engineering master's program may have taken different routes to get here, but they have the same goal: capitalize on the auto industry's growing need for EV engineers.

About half are returning to school. Alan Dry, 63, for instance, was laid off from his job as an engineering supervisor at parts supplier International Automotive Components Group. Dry wants to rejoin the industry in the EV sector.

Chrysler engineer Kevin Snyder, 40, was transferred to the automaker's electrified hybrid power-train group in May. Snyder said the Wayne State … Read more

A Virginia Tech University engineering team on Thursday won first place in the EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge with an 82-mile-per-gallon, extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) using E85 (ethanol).

The results of the three-year EcoCAR competition were announced on L'Enfant Plaza, in Washington, D.C. United States Secretary of Energy Steven Chu congratulated the team at an award ceremony. A total of 16 teams participated in the competition that was co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors (GM).

A student team from Ohio State University took second place with an E85 EREV. Third place went to a … Read more

A team of engineering students from Wayne State University has been chosen to participate in EcoCar 2: Plugging in to the Future. WSU is the only university from Michigan to participate in the three-year program, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors.

Sixteen collegiate teams from across the U.S. and Canada will explore new ways to reduce the environmental impact of vehicles without diminishing performance or compromising safety.

Challengers "will use a Chevrolet Malibu donated by General Motors as the integration platform for their advanced vehicle design," says a WSU statement.… Read more

It's hard enough building an electric car from the wheels up, carefully selecting lightweight materials and creating an efficient yet robust power train with commercial appeal. But it's arguably tougher to take a stock approximately 4,000-pound hybrid SUV, remove its internal bits, design and squeeze in alternate components not designed for automotive uses around an existing infrastructure, put everything back together, and hope it passes a 300-point safety check.

Now try tackling all this during finals.

As part of the GM's EcoCar Challenge, a program sponsored in conjunction with the Department of Energy and several automotive suppliers, 16 university teams of undergraduate and graduate students are competing in a three-year competition to plan, develop, and refine an alternative fuel SUV that meets commercial and consumer standards.

Competing for more than $100,000 in prizes each year, teams are required to replace the SUV's existing hybrid engine and transmission with an extended-range, plug-in electric, fuel-cell, or all-electric power train using their choice of B20, E85, or liquid hydrogen fuel. The vehicles are judged on fuel economy, well-to-wheel emissions reduction, performance, and towing, to name a few factors.

On May 20, I visited GM's Desert Proving grounds in Yuma, Arizona as the teams prepared to test their vehicles in the second stage of the competition. Seeing these modified SUVs in various stages of undress and watching students racing to troubleshoot and reassemble their vehicles like young Nascar pit teams, I quickly realized that my college experience was a waste of time. … Read more

Students from Mississippi State University placed first in the 2010 EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge finals in San Diego Friday after designing and building a biodiesel extended-range electric vehicle (EREV).

Teams from 16 universities competed in the Year Two Finals of the three-year competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors. The competition challenges engineering students to re-engineer a GM-donated vehicle to minimize the vehicle's fuel consumption and emissions, while maintaining its utility, safety, and performance. The teams have been preparing for the final testing and inspection of the competition for the past week.

"This … Read more

For the next five days, 100 college engineering students from universities across North America will be making last-minute preparations on their eco cars before the vehicles are judged.

This is the end of the second year of the EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge, hosted at the General Motors Desert Proving Ground in Yuma, Ariz. EcoCAR is a three-year competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and GM that challenges each team to re-engineer a GM-donated vehicle using a range of alternative technologies and integrating them together to make their own unique architecture.

"The students spent two years designing … Read more