Student team to design eco-friendly car for national competition

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - A Purdue team has been selected to compete and create a fully functional eco-friendly car within three years, our partner, the Purdue Exponent, reports.

The Purdue EcoMakers were chosen out of 70 applicants to be one of 15 teams in the EcoCAR 2 contest. EcoCAR 2 is a three-year competition sponsored by General Motors that challenges teams to implement changes to a Chevrolet Malibu to reduce its environmental impact.

To do so, teams must remove components of the car and integrate new technology into the vehicle. By the end of the project, the teams will have created a fully functional car General Motors could immediately produce.

During the first year of competition, the team must choose a design and create a computer simulation of the modified car. The team will present their strategy and research to judges in Los Angeles in May.

The team plans to implement a parallel-to-the-road architecture which will utilize an independent parallel electric motor to drive the rear wheels. In the car’s charge-depleting mode, the rear-end battery-powered electric drive train will power the vehicle forward. Once the battery pack is used up, the car will be powered by a diesel engine that uses B20 biofuel. B20 is a fuel composed of 20% biodiesel and 80% petroleum diesel.

Graduate student Haley Moore, the project manager for the team, said the team chose the design because of its fuel efficiency and potential for real-world application.

“Many of the designs we looked at were also very fuel-efficient,” Moore said. “However, the technology was not quite at the point where it could be easily implemented and mass produced in three years.”

Aside from the construction of the car, the teams must also fulfill community outreach requirements. The focus of the outreach is to educate others about becoming more green and to communicate how hybrids work and help the environment.

Members of the EcoMakers team range from freshmen to graduate students. Most members are involved in engineering majors. However, Moore said the team is also looking to recruit business majors to help them with their community outreach requirements.

Moore said she believes students working on the project will have an advantage in the workforce by already having experience designing innovative cars.

“With the practical knowledge our members are getting, they’ll be able to jump head first into a project with less training than their peers,” Moore said.

Chris Rhoades, a graduate student and member of EcoMakers, said the automotive industry will also benefit by supporting new engineers as they research green energy solutions.

“One of the competition’s goals is to educate the next generation of engineers by giving us hands-on experience to what is needed to design a hybrid vehicle,” Rhoades said in an e-mail. “The automotive industry will benefit from the competition by the knowledge that (will be) gained from the students going into the automotive field.”