Contact: Robbie Ward
STARKVILLE, Miss.--About 60 Mississippi State students are preparing to spend three years working to improve "their car" and, in the process, help shape the United States energy policy.
They've accepted a national university challenge to make a difference in the next generation of vehicles--electric plug-in automobiles. So far, early tests show the prototype they're designing will have a fuel economy reaching up to 100-miles-per gallon.
MSU is among 17 collegiate teams from throughout North America competitively selected recently to create the "EcoCAR."
Known as EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge, the competition includes the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors as headline sponsors. The goal: to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions of a Saturn VUE, while also maintaining performance, safety and consumer appeal.
MSU holds a special honor entering the 2009-12 event. For the last two years, the land-grant institution won first place in ChallengeX, a national four-year collegiate competition also sponsored by DOE and GM that focused on hybrid technology.
At the Washington (D.C.) Auto Show this week, participating school teams learned which of four design types they will work with: extended range electric, plug-in hybrid electric, full-function electric, or fuel cell plug-in hybrid electric. The MSU team selected a range-extending, plug-in series hybrid configuration as the type of energy source for the vehicle. It initially will be charged by plugging into an electrical outlet and operate with all-electric power source for the first 40 miles until the batteries are depleted. Then, a small diesel engine will recharge the batteries as the vehicle continues to operate.
"We have to plan and think everything through in detail," said team member Michael Barr. "If we don't, we could run into problems when actually building the vehicle."
General Motors officials involved in the EcoCAR project said the technology being used is designed "to save significant amounts of gasoline because of electric power involved in running the engine."
Barr, a senior mechanical engineering major from Carriere, said the MSU team's first year is being spent using sophisticated computer modeling programs on campus to design and simulate their vehicle's operation.
In June, the team completes the first phase of competition--an evaluation of their proposed vehicle design to take place in Toronto, Canada.
During the second year, teams receive their Saturn VUE models and begin the re-engineering process leading to a final judging based on testing, control integration and refinement.
As with the award-winning ChallengeX program, MSU's EcoCAR team will be advised by Marshall Molen, the Bagley College of Engineering's Ergon Corp. and Diversified Technology Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
For more info about MSU's EcoCAR team, contact Dr. Molen at 662-325-5577 or molen@ece.msstate.edu.
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For more info about the EcoCAR Challenge, visit www.ecocarchallenge.org.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.