About EcoCAR 2
Technical Goals
The technical goals are to design and integrate vehicle powertrains that, when compared to the production gasoline vehicle:
•Reduce fuel consumption
•Reduce well-to-wheel greenhouse gas emissions
•Reduce criteria tailpipe emissions
•Maintain consumer acceptability in the areas of performance, utility, and safety
EcoCAR 2: Plugging In to the Future, is a three-year collegiate engineering competition and the only program of its kind.
The competition's mission is a vital one: offer an unparalleled hands-on, real-world experience to educate the next generation of automotive engineers. The competition challenges 15 universities across North America to reduce the environmental impact of a Chevrolet Malibu without compromising performance, safety and consumer acceptability.
Established by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and General Motors (GM), EcoCAR 2 builds upon a successful 25-year history of DOE Advanced Vehicle Technology Competitions (AVTC) that exemplify the power of public/private partnerships in providing invaluable experience and training to promising, young minds entering the North American job market. EcoCAR 2 follows the widely acclaimed competition series EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge.
Shaped by the greatest design changes in the history of the automotive industry, EcoCAR 2 requires students to explore a variety of powertrain architectures focusing on electric drive vehicle technology. EcoCAR 2 teams will utilize a 2013 Chevrolet Malibu, donated by General Motors as the integration platform for their advanced vehicle design.
During the three-year program EcoCAR 2 teams will follow a real-world Vehicle Development Process (VDP) modeled after GM's VDP. The VDP serves as a roadmap for the engineering process of designing, building and refining their advanced technology vehicles. Following a VDP will give the teams an opportunity to improve their vehicles efficiency while retaining consumer acceptability, performance and safety.