Welcome to Year 2!

This year, we are getting our GM donated vehicle, and making our plans from last year a reality. Check out our progress on the blog below!

Sustainability Week

Last week was sustainability week here at Virginia Tech. Check out the pictures of our involvement here.

 


From the Green Garage Blog: Virginia Tech Gets to Work on New GM Hybrid

See original article.

Since the first day of classes, the Hybrid Electric Vehicle Team (HEVT) of Virginia Tech had been waiting for their vehicle. On Wednesday, September 30th, the team’s GM-donated vehicle finally arrived. The delivery truck backed up to a crowd of waiting students accompanied by a local CBS news crew. Please see the following link for local news coverage of GM donated vehicle arrival at VT: http://www.wdbj7.com/Global/story.asp?S=11236349

Once the vehicle was turned over to the students, they immediately popped the hood and rolled up their sleeves. Ready and eager to get their hands dirty in the process of making the vehicle their own creation.

Jesse Alley, a senior Mechanical Engineering student was quoted saying, “this project is absolutely blood, sweat, and tears.” With the difficulty of the task at hand, 24 senior students threw themselves at the project. Now that their vehicle has arrived, it’s time to get to work!

From the Green Garage Blog: Virginia Tech EcoCAR Team Engineers Boston Victory

See original article.

Virginia Tech kicked off year 2 of the three-year EcoCar: The NeXt Challenge competition with a first place win at Track One at F1 Racing Boston during the Fall Workshop in Boston, Mass.

Patrick Walsh, Virginia Tech’s Hybrid Electric Vehicle Team’s co-leader, who was the driver of the car was asked about his team’s victory.

“It’s a great way to start off this year’s competition. Go Hokies!,” said Patrick.

In addition to the F1 race, Virginia Tech team participated in technical and outreach training throughout the five day event provided by The MathWorks, one of the key sponsors of the competition in addition to Department of Energy and GM.

“The classroom sessions were productive and will prove to be very valuable as we work to integrate our designs in the GM vehicle this year,” said Lynn Gantt, co-leader of the HEVT team.

WDBJ-7 Coverage

WDBJ-7 Covered our GM vehicle reception on the news and on their website. Check out the article here.

Our GM Donated Vehicle Has Arrived!


Welcome to Virginia Tech's EcoCAR Team Website

For the past 14 years, the Hybrid Electric Vehicle Team of Virginia Tech (HEVT) has provided students with the opportunity to research, develop, and build actual hybrid vehicles. With EcoCAR, HEVT plans to continue its efforts in demonstrating the potential to create sustainable mobility while retaining vehicle performance, utility and safety. The team will evaluate the base gasoline vehicle as a comparison, select a fuel based both on well-to-tank factors using GREET, and tank-to-wheel factors from powertrain/fuel technologies, and decide which approach best meets the selection criteria of reduced vehicle environmental impact. The fuels evaluated will include RFG, E85, B20, grid electricity, and hydrogen. Vehicle technologies that will be considered include electric traction systems, full hybrid powertrain systems, and various fuel converters including fuel cells. All of these technologies are within the experience of HEVT. The end result of this process will be a vehicle design that, when compared to the base vehicle, significantly reduces total energy consumption, minimizes petroleum energy consumption, has less overall criteria air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions, and maintains or exceeds consumer acceptable performance, utility, and safety. The implementation of the design will require critical timeline and budget constraints to meet deliverables and produce working, tested and safe systems in a vehicle with validated models and data. The most important result of EcoCAR will be the graduating engineers that have the hands-on, real-world educational experience needed to contribute to the North American automotive industry in the 21st century.

The opportunity to collaborate with the sponsors in an international challenge to develop and demonstrate sustainable automotive technology is a privilege and an honor. HEVT has enthusiastically accepted this NeXt Challenge and is proud to have the opportunity to compete in EcoCAR. The team has the support knowledge, experience and determination necessary to produce a truly competitive and innovative hybrid vehicle.