Ohio State Students Setting the Pace at EcoCAR Challenge

The Ohio State EcoCAR team gives an O-H-I-O.Ohio State engineering students have received the largest number of awards so far among fellow teams in the U.S. Department of Energy EcoCAR competition.

EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge, is pitting 16 teams from around the world in a contest to improve automotive technology. Students are required to re-engineer a crossover utility vehicle to improve fuel economy and reduce emissions while retaining the vehicles’ performance and consumer appeal. In addition to the energy department, the competition was established by General Motors and is managed by Argonne National Laboratory.

The Ohio State team integrated into its hybrid SUV, dubbed the Buckeye Charge, a new extended-range electric vehicle powertrain design and recalibrated a 1.8-liter Honda engine for use with E85 ethanol fuel.

The Buckeye awards so far:
1. Outstanding Woman in Engineering Award: Beth Bezaire, M.S. candidate, Mechanical Engineering
2. Overall Outreach Program, 2nd place
3. Best sponsor success story: For an article published in SAE Momentum Magazine.
4. Best collaboration with a clean cities coalition: For the OSU EcoCAR team collaboration with Clean Fuels Ohio.
5. Diversity Award, 3rd place
6. Freescale Innovation Award: For the best use, conception and design and implementation of embedded electronics and controls.

The EcoCAR Challenge is a three-year effort that began in 2009. This year’s competition finals are taking place at the GM Desert Proving Ground in Yuma, Ariz., and at locations throughout San Diego. Team vehicles are being judged by a variety of tests: Safety and Technical Inspection, Dynamic Consumer Acceptability, Highway Stability, Braking, Acceleration, Autocross, Emissions & Energy Consumption testing, Mechanical, Electrical, Controls, Outreach and other various sponsored awards.

The Year Two Competition Finals conclude tomorrow with an awards ceremony at the House of Blues San Diego, where awards totaling nearly $100,000 will be handed out and the first, second and third place winners will be announced.

At the end of the first year of the competition, the Ohio State team landed in first place, earning students the GM-donated vehicle and a place in this year’s competition. Next year the teams will continue to refine and improve their vehicles and compete in more engineering tests.

Keep up with the team:
Follow them on Twitter
Ohio State EcoCAR website
Green Garage Blog for all teams
National EcoCAR Challenge website