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Media Members Get to Ride Shotgun at Green Ride & Drive

March 15, 2011 in EcoCAR News by ggguest | No comments

Since the early stages of competition, public interest in the innovative vehicles designed and built by the EcoCAR teams has surged.  At the EcoCAR “Green Ride & Drive” event yesterday, hosted at the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory (NVFEL), the media was invited to interact with sponsors and students to see just how well the teams have taken performance and consumer appeal into account in their advanced technology vehicles.

Student engineers and Outreach Coordinators spoke to the media about the aspects of their vehicles that make them appealing to consumers, as well as the technical details of their vehicles’ architectures. Representatives from local Michigan media outlets got a close-up look at just what makes the EcoCAR vehicles special, and rode shotgun while they went out for a spin. The media presence included the Detroit News, Automotive News, AutoWeek, Detroit Auto Scene, SAE International Magazine, Xconomy Detroit and WOSU, a PBS station in Ohio. Reporter Scott Burgess from the Detroit News was on hand and captured the essence of EcoCAR in this story.

“It’s rewarding to be able to test the emissions and control systems that we have been refining throughout Year Three of the competition,” said Penn State team co-leader, Michael Zahradnik. “We also enjoyed showing off our vehicle to the high-level sponsors involved in the program and the media attendees.”

The University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) team spent the sunshine-filled morning talking with visitors and taking them for rides in their EcoCAR. The team’s full-function electric vehicle is powered by high energy density lithium polymer cells, and is expected to have a 250 mile range on a single charge when it is complete.

“It’s nice to get the opportunity to bring our EcoCAR to EPA’s facilities and show the results of our hard work in the garage,” said UOIT team leader, Gavin Clark. “Several attendees were impressed with the vehicle’s acceleration and power, something that they hadn’t expected from a full electric vehicle.”

MS&T Team Leader Kevin Martin Show's Off the Team's Vehicle

During the afternoon, employees at EPA’s NVFEL had the opportunity to spend time with the teams and take a peek under the hoods of the advanced technology vehicles. In addition, there was time for special awards recognition to the many EPA employees that helped to facilitate the team testing over the last two weeks.

The EcoCAR Ride & Drive event allowed guests to share the students’ passion and enthusiasm, and generated even more buzz and excitement in anticipation of the competition finals in May, when all vehicles will be put to the final test!

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Focus on the Future at EcoCAR’s Spring Workshop

March 15, 2011 in EcoCAR News by ggguest | 1 comment

With teams starting the second week of the Year Three Spring Workshop, a vision of what the future – or at least the competition finals – may hold for EcoCAR students is beginning to take shape.  Over the past few days the students have soaked up lessons learned from inspections, testing, and presentations by organizers and sponsors, and are feeling well-equipped to make the final adjustments to their advanced technology vehicles and outreach campaigns.

The weekend was packed full of activities for the students. In addition to getting some real-world experience with test procedures, students attended workshop presentations on specific hardware components, the upcoming competition finals, and even got some advice from competition veterans, such as Wisconsin’s faculty advisors Glenn Bower and Shawn Midlam-Mohler, who have both been part of advanced vehicle competitions for more than a decade. Teams also go to hear an exciting review of the inner workings of the Chevrolet Volt.

Team Outreach Coordinators were also busy at the Spring Workshop. Just like the vehicles, Outreach Coordinators were put to the test when they gave scored presentations of a sponsor success story, submitting a paper and a poster on a learning experience the team had received through the help of a sponsor.

But it hasn’t been all work and no play – student’s enjoyed last week’s Sponsor Social, where they had the opportunity to network with EcoCAR sponsors, who in recent years have hired many competition graduates.

Mike Carlson of Wisconsin talks to a dSPACE recruiter

“I was surprised to see so many sponsors at the sponsor social,” said University of Victoria Team Leader Jeff Waldner. “You can really tell they are interested in hiring EcoCAR students and are excited to see that so many students are interested to work in the automotive industry.”

Texas Tech team members talk with a Snap-on Representative

Several awards were given out at the Spring Workshop Sponsor Social as well. Woodward announced the first and second place teams for their MotorHawk Video Award with Ohio State University taking first place and the University of Waterloo coming in second place. Other awards included recognizing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for all of their work with the Spring Workshop and awarding Henning Lohse-Busch, Argonne National Laboratory, and Tom Schrodt, U.S. EPA, with the EPA Outstanding Researcher Award.

EcoCAR also recognized all the hard work that the engineering GRAs and outreach coordinators have put into the competition, with two separate dinners on Saturday and Sunday nights. The dinners were a time to acknowledge the value that the students have added to the competition.

“The outreach dinner was a blast,” said UOIT Outreach Coordinator Lesley McLelland. “The opportunity to spend time with competition organizers and sponsor representatives is hugely valuable and quite a privilege. In the end, that’s what the competition is about – real-world experience and building industry connections.”

With just a few days of vehicle dyno testing left, students are already gearing up for the final competition, and are eager to get home to fine-tune their vehicles.

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Group A Wraps up Dyno Testing at EPA

March 13, 2011 in EcoCAR News by ggguest | No comments

It has been a busy week at the EPA’s National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory (NVFEL) in Ann Arbor, MI as five teams were able to complete several dyno testing sessions on both the 2WD dyno and 4WD dyno.

The Ohio State team was excited to use the 4WD chassis dyno at EPA because they only have 2WD dyno capabilities at their university.

“With the 4WD dyno, some of the major focuses of our testing have been tuning our electrically heated catalyst control and some engine transient testing on the EPA drive cycles,” said Ohio State controls team lead John Kruckenberg.

The Ohio State team was able to analyze their catalyst control in hopes of improving their emissions of cold starts and getting a better baseline for how their vehicle performs on the road.

The Ohio State team using the 4WD chassis dyno

“In the second four-hour drive cycle, we were able to complete the official EPA certification dyno test so we could compare our previous test cycles to that of our electric drive mode to see how the vehicle runs on a standard cycle.”

Other teams, like Mississippi State, decided to test their urea-injection system that reduces NOx emissions in diesel fuel. This type of testing helps determine the optimal amount of urea to inject into the system for emissions purposes.

Mississippi State team members testing their EcoCAR

“You must inject sufficient amounts of urea to reduce the NOx emissions to a suitable level; however, if an excessive amount of urea is injected, this will cause ammonia to accumulate in the catalyst potentially resulting in harm to the system,” said Mississippi State Faculty Advisor Marshall Molen.

The Mississippi State team conducting additional tests

The University of Waterloo was also able to complete several dyno sessions this week at EPA. Their fuel cell plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (FC-PHEV) is just one of two in this competition.

“We ran a combination of urban and highway cycles just to get a baseline for vehicle performance and to be able to data log our powertrain,” said University of Waterloo team leader Michael Giannikouris.

“We also had the opportunity to get to do custom acceleration tests that allowed us to tune certain controls parameters on the dyno.”As the Group A dyno testing came to a close, both students and advisors agreed that this workshop was really beneficial.
 
“It has been great to work with EPA personnel and equipment,” said Will Dickerson, team member for Mississippi State. “We are able to get a better understanding of the kind of testing procedures that are relevant to today’s emissions testing.”

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Spring Workshop Dyno Testing Begins at EPA

March 11, 2011 in EcoCAR News by ggguest | No comments

Group A teams started testing this week during the EcoCAR Spring Workshop held at  EPA’s National Fuels and Vehicle Emissions Laboratory (NFVEL).

“Dynamometer testing at EPA allows us to test vehicle emissions as well as fuel and energy consumption in a controlled and repeatable environment,” said Henning Lohse-Busch, Principal Mechanical Engineer at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and ANL Dyno Testing Event Captain.

All EcoCAR teams planned the drive cycles they would use to test their vehicles in advance of Spring Workshop. Some of these drive cycles include cold starts, highway driving cycles, and urban dyno drive schedules (UDDS).

Each team has the chance to complete two four-hour testing sessions to evaluate their emissions and fuel energy consumption. The first four-hour session goal is to evaluate the team’s powertrain according to their test plan. The second four-hour cycle starts with a cold test Federal Test Procedure (FTP), followed by a pair of highway drive cycles.

“The second testing session is very similar to what the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have to go through, so each team gets to experience what the real-world OEM process is like,” said Lohse-Busch.

As of mid-week, four teams have been able to perform the first four-hour dynamometer testing cycle based on their test plans, including Virginia Tech, Penn State, Ohio State and Mississippi State. Penn State and Virginia Tech were able to complete both four-hour test cycles late in the day on Wednesday.

 

Faculty Advisor Doug Nelson with VT's EcoCAR

“We have been running our vehicle really hard but we are getting great data from testing,” said Katie Kirsch, controls team member for Penn State. “We’ve been able to run a cold start urban cycle and two highway cycles to test our diesel emissions. From the data we collected, we can take it back to Penn State and then tweak our emissions system before competition in June.”

Not only is the vehicle dyno testing important to the students, but EPA has also been able to seize the opportunity to do further testing for their own research purposes.

“EPA was able to have the both Penn State and Virginia Tech complete additional full-charge test sequences on the vehicles,” said Lohse-Busch. “In fact, Virginia Tech was able to complete nine UDDS cycles in an electric vehicle (EV) mode during testing, getting about 68 miles in EV. Both the teams and EPA have found this workshop really insightful.”

As we head into Day Four, Group A teams will continue to test their vehicles on the dyno and Group B vehicles will arrive at EPA for the initial safety tech inspection. Be sure to check back on the Green Garage Blog for more updates!

Penn State's vehicle on the dyno!

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Vehicles and Students Arrive at EPA for the 2011 Spring Workshop

March 8, 2011 in EcoCAR News by ggguest | No comments

After weeks of preparation for the EcoCAR Year Three Spring Workshop, teams began to arrive at the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory ready to pass safety tech inspections and begin dynamometer and emissions testing on their vehicles.

Vehicles staged in the inside pit area

Vehicles staged in the inside pit area

The Spring Workshop is unique, in that the EcoCAR teams are divided into two groups for vehicle testing. Group A, which consists of Georgia Tech, Mississippi State,  Michigan Tech, Ohio State, Penn State, Texas Tech, University of Waterloo, and Virginia Tech, will take part in the inspections and dynamometer testing during the first week of the workshop.

Group B will arrive later this week and start their safety inspections and vehicle testing during the second half of the Spring Workshop. Group B consists of Embry-Riddle , Missouri S&T, North Carolina State, Rose-Hulman, University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT), University of Victoria, University of Wisconsin, and West Virginia University.

Starting last Friday, March 4, organizers and EPA staff helped unload the Group A vehicles off of the transport trailers and into the pit area to begin safety tech inspections.

University of Waterloo vehicle being unloaded off of the transport trailer

University of Waterloo vehicle being unloaded off of the transport trailer

As of Monday, four teams passed their full safety tech inspection on the first day, including Virginia Tech, Penn State, Ohio State and Mississippi State.

Penn State's vehicle preps for safety tech inspections

Penn State's vehicle preps for safety tech inspections

“Building off of what we did last year at the safety tech inspections at Year Two Finals, we were better prepared for what we needed to get done to pass this time,” said Eric Schacht, team leader for Ohio State University.

Ohio State talks to Bruce Willis, GM, and Danny Bocci, Argonne National Lab, about their safety tech inspection

Virginia Tech, who was the first team to pass safety tech, was pleased that they were also the first team to start dynamometer testing.

“It’s been a great experience so far,” said Virginia Tech team member, Andrew Karpin. “We really appreciate EPA and other sponsors for letting us have a viable option to improve our vehicle by doing  dyno testing. It will help our team out immensely come Final Competition.”

As the rest of the teams pass safety tech inspections, they will begin implementing their test plans on one of EPA’s dynamometers.

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EcoCAR’s Ride and Drive Event is Right Around the Corner!

March 2, 2011 in EcoCAR News by ggguest | No comments

After nearly three years of innovation (not to mention many long nights in the garage), EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge is hosting its first “Green Ride & Drive” at the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory on March 14th. Special guests, sponsors, and journalists that attend the event in Ann Arbor will have the opportunity to get inside student-built vehicles and take them for a spin.

With teams racing to complete their EcoCARs for the competition finals in May, the Ride & Drive offers a unique preview of what’s in store!

The event comes midway through EcoCAR’s Spring Workshop, a two-week event at EPA’s facilities that gives all sixteen teams the opportunity to refine and improve their alternative vehicles. The EcoCARs will undergo a series of emissions tests using the EPA’s chassis dynamometers – the same tests production vehicles undergo before hitting the road.

We can’t wait to see the EcoCARs in action!

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Announcement: Spring Workshop Group Assignments

February 11, 2011 in EcoCAR News by ggguest | 1 comment

For nearly three years, the 16 EcoCAR teams have been designing, building and perfecting their vehicles. The Spring Workshop at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory (NVFEL) in Ann Arbor, MI is right around the corner and marks the first significant Year Three milestone and a prime opportunity for the teams to showcase their commitment, vehicle achievement and promising futures.

We’re pleased to announce the group assignments for the Spring Workshop. Group A will attend the first week of the Workshop and Group B will attend the second week.

Group A:

Group B:

We’re getting really excited for the Spring Workshop and we look forward to seeing all the teams in Ann Arbor!

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New Kid on the Block: The Chevrolet Volt is a Game Changer

February 9, 2011 in Green Auto News by ggguest | 1 comment

As expected, it didn’t take long for Chevrolet’s Volt to turn the heads of car-enthusiasts everywhere.  Within a month of its release, GM’s newest hybrid car has won several awards, including 2011 Motor Trend Car of the Year and Green Car Journal’s Green Car of the Year.  With sales anticipated to skyrocket, Chevrolet has already announced that they plan to double manufacturing, releasing over 100,000 units nationwide by 2012.

Considered the stepping stone to an automobile revolution, the electric car’s release was met with enormous buzz and expectations.  The list of features is impressive – automatic seat warmers, a Bose Energy Efficient Series sound system, and a seven-inch LCD-screen panel that presents driving feedback and estimated electric and gas ranges – but the most appealing aspect of the car is probably its multi-faceted engine.  A lithium-ion battery pack allows the Volt to travel up to 40 miles on pure electricity while a gasoline reserve powers the electric motors and fuels an internal generator.  As expected with a green car, the Volt’s energy ratings are impressive.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has estimated the car’s overall fuel economy rating to be 60 mpg, the highest in its segment (the car’s all-electric mode is 93 mpg and all-gas mode is 37 mpg).

Chevy Volt

Chevrolet Volt (Image courtesy of Chevrolet.com)

Some experts believe that plug-in cars will catch fire in a similar fashion to other recent technological innovations such as smartphones and flat-screen TVs.  It may be a slow start – the number of available refueling stations initially limited the release of the Volt to select states – but the combination of environmental friendliness and financial benefits will soon propel these vehicles up the ladder.  Buckle your seatbelts; the roads are about to change!

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Video: Preview of EcoCAR’s Spring Workshop at EPA

October 27, 2010 in EcoCAR News, Video Blogs by ggguest | 1 comment

As we wrap up the Fall Workshop, we turn our attention to the next workshop on the horizon…Spring!

EcoCAR is thrilled to bring the teams to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Vehicle and fuel Emissions Laboratory facility in Ann Arbor, Michigan for the spring workshop from March 6-18. EcoCAR vehicles will undergo emissions testing on the EPA’s impressive dynamometers and face evaluations similar to those in the industry including highway, city, vehicle energy use and exhaust particulate tests.

It’s already lining up to be a tough, but memorable Spring Workshop! For a preview and more details about the EPA’s state-of-the-art facilities, check out the video below.

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Argonne Researchers Recharge Plug-in Vehicle Standards

July 9, 2010 in EcoCAR News, Green Auto News by ggguest | No comments

Here at EcoCAR we are challenged to develop practices to measure emissions and fuel economy and now it’s happening at a national level. It was just announced that mechanical engineers at Agronne National Laboratory received approval of SAE J1711, a revised recommended practice for figuring out the fuel economy and exhaust emissions test procedures of hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs). The approval is a major accomplishment that will encourage and support the nation’s move to electrified vehicles for petroleum savings. The new revisions are also the basis for the way that we measure fuel consumption in EcoCAR.

Mike Duoba, a principal mechanical engineer for Argonne, has led the SAE International (Society of Automotive Engineers) task force in the effort to revise the test procedures to better evaluate PHEV technologies.  

Mike Duoba tests a car at Argonne's Advanced Powertrain Research Facility

Even more exciting, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to issue a new regulation later this year that will define PHEV fuel economy reporting protocol and much of the new EPA regulation is likely to be based on SAE J1711. Now that SAE J1711 has been approved, Duoba and his colleagues are focused on supporting the development of testing standards for all-electric vehicles, known as SAE J1634.

Pretty cool! What do you think?  We’d love to hear your thoughts on the challenges and benefits of having these standards in place.

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