[ back ]
Team works to develop an "EcoCAR"
(by Rick Palsgrove, Southeast Editor - July 01, 2009)
 |
| Ohio State students and EcoCAR team members Katy Garrett, Matt Yard, Bill Kickel, and Allyson Schlegel are shown with the team's tradeshow display and hardware simulator. |
Are electric cars the future of transportation?
A team of 20 to 40 engineering students from The Ohio State University is exploring that future. The team recently bested 16 others from around the world in winning the design and simulation phase in the first year of a three year United States Department of Energy competition, the EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge.
The team's goal is to re-engineer a 2009 Saturn Vue to achieve improved fuel economy and reduced emissions while retaining the vehicle's performance and consumer appeal.
Eric Schacht, a 2005 graduate of Canal Winchester High School and a senior in electrical and computer engineering at Ohio State, is captain of the team.
"We specifically set out to design a vehicle that performed very well off of all electrical that would plug into a wall and charge up at home, as well as a vehicle that could perform after the battery ran out and it transitioned to running on E85 ethanol," said Schacht. "Over the summer we will receive engines donated by Honda, so we will begin tuning our engine to be ready to go into the 2009 Saturn Vue once it arrives in August. Our engine is actually a compressed natural gas engine that Honda built and we will convert to run on the E85. We're doing the complete conversion and all the tuning and software ourselves. Right now all we have is the hardware."
This year the team will put the electric car together
"It's the 'mule phase,'" said Schacht. "We'll assemble the components and make it work. The third year will be the testing and validation when we'll test, tune and tweak the design."
Schacht, who said he likes working in the automotive realm, said he has always been interested in "hands on engineering projects." He said this project caught his eye because it seemed "the most relevant, uses the most recent technology to solve problems, and is practical."
Schacht said the car is designed to go 30 to 40 miles on a fully charged battery. After that it could go up to 60 miles per gallon once the engine kicks in on E85 ethanol. He said this vehicle's design will allow the engine to recharge the battery while driving on the ethanol and not lose power in the process.
A difficult problem arose in trying to fit the batteries into a traditional car design. Schacht said the team got around this by splitting the batteries, putting some in the trunk and some up front.
He said building a prototype will be expensive as the battery pack alone could cost up to $15,000. But in the future, if the car is mass produced, the cost would come down.
"There's a future for the electric car," said Schacht, "and the future is based on the battery. We've already seen an increase in the technology and, as fast as it's changing, it makes the development of the electric car very possible."
[ back ]
