Decked out in enough stickers to make a NASCAR driver jealous, the cars in the EcoCar 2 competition finished year two of their three-year journey last week, with Penn State declared the winner.

Fifteen universities are taking part in EcoCar 2, which involves taking a 2013 Chevy Malibu and making it as green as possible. The final challenges of Year Two were to conduct drives at the GM Desert Proving Ground in Yuma, AZ and then undergo a round of judging in San Diego, CA. As you might suspect, this gives room for winners in a number of categories (see the list here), but it was Penn State that managed to win the overall title.

The teams are allowed (encouraged, actually) to modify the powertrain, which is why Penn State's Malibu is a E85 plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. Cal State Los Angles also uses ethanol in its second-place vehicle. Ohio State University turned its Malibu into a parallel hybrid electric vehicle, which was good enough for third place.

Over the next year, the final one before (we suspect) the third EcoCar gets rolling, the schools and teams will continue to work on the program's goals, which include building cars that, in the words of the organizers:
  • Reduce petroleum energy consumption on the basis of a total fuel cycle analysis;
  • Reduce fuel consumption;
  • Reduce well to wheel greenhouse gas emissions;
  • Reduce criteria tailpipe emissions;
  • Maintain consumer acceptability in the area of performance, utility, and safety.
EcoCar 2's main sponsors are General Motors and the US Department of Energy, but there are many more, which you can see in the press release below, where you'll also find a video. The overall winning student team will be named next year in Washington, DC.


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