Students know how to charge it
February 4, 2009
STARKVILLE, Miss.– Put away the dishes, take out the trash, walk the dog, plug-in the car?
While it may sound strange today, students at Mississippi State (MSU) think plugging-in the car could become as common a task as sweeping the kitchen floor. Utilizing cutting-edge technology, a team of engineering majors plans to re-engineer a consumer vehicle to allow drivers to travel up to 40 miles on a single electric charge, without burning a single drop of fuel.
“Our automotive plan is a plug-in series range extended hybrid, which includes two electric motors. This will allow someone to drive for a certain range before the engine ever turns on,” explained Michael Barr, a mechanical engineering major. “Once the battery gets below a certain state of charge, the engine will automatically turn on allowing you to continue to drive while simultaneously recharging the battery.”
The project is part of the three year EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge, a North American competition sponsored by the Department of Energy and General Motors. It challenges 17-competitively selected teams to improved the fuel efficiency and reduce the emissions of a Saturn VUE, while maintaining vehicle performance, safety and consumer appeal.
Teams were encouraged to use creativity when planning their designs including the use of hybrid, plug-in hybrid, fuel cell, and range-extending electric automotive platforms. After roughly eight months of planning, each team’s platform was announced to the public Feb. 3 at the Washington Auto Show in Washington, D.C.
The announcement sets the stage for the next three years of competition by locking competitors into their proposed designs.
“The first year of the competition is all design and simulation,” Barr said. “You have to plan and think everything through because if you don’t, you could run into problems when you actually start building the vehicle, but by then it is too late in the competition to change your design.”
Early tests conducted at MSU indicate that the team’s proposed automotive architecture could earn an estimated 100 miles per gallon over combined city and highway driving. The team, which consists of 58 students, is using industry standard hardware-in-the-loop technology to test their plans.
“The team is working together to make sure all of our competition reports are filed and simulations run correctly so we are prepared to start working on the actual vehicle next August,” Barr said.
The first competition, which evaluates design, will take place in Toronto, Canada in June. Each team will then be given a Saturn VUE to re-engineer for the final two years of competition during which teams will be judged on vehicle testing, control integration and refinement.
EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge is the newest installment in a series of Department of Energy advanced vehicle technology competitions. MSU boast consecutive national championships in the previous competition, Challenge X: Crossover to Sustainability.
For more information about the team and the competition, contact EcoCAR powertrain group leader Michael Barr.