Ohio State Wins EcoCAR3 Challenge

The US Department of Energy started EcoCAR3, a four year competition designed to challenge American engineering students, in 2014. The goal is to convert a standard Chevrolet Camaro into a hybrid vehicle that maintains the performance of a stock Camaro while introducing the environmental benefits of a hybrid car.

Ohio State engineering students are on a roll. They won the final year of the EcoCAR2 competition in 2014, the first year of the EcoCAR3 competition in 2015, and were winners again in this year’s contest.

In the first year of EcoCAR3, the emphasis was on design and simulation. This year, prototypes were tested for safety and performance under various conditions. Team leader Andrew Huster shared details about his team’s entry with Engineering.com.

The OSU entry uses two powertrains. The car can run on electric power alone for up to 45 miles. Since the average American only drives 30 miles or less each day, that means the Camaro could meet the daily needs of most drivers without using the internal combustion engine. Using both at the same time, the car has a total of more than 300 horsepower and a top speed of 85 mph.

The team chose a Parker Hannifin GVM210-150 electric motor to power the car. It is a variable frequency AC motor that’s capable of providing 150 hp and 250 Nm of peak torque. It weighs only 100 pounds.

The engine is a 2.0 liter 4 cylinder engine with direct fuel injection. The team chose to run the engine on E85 ethanol. It weighs 225 pounds. Even though ethanol has less energy per unit of mass as compared to gasoline, Huster says the team “conducted a number of simulations for each permitted fuel type (E10, E85, and B20) and determined that E85’s benefits, such as a higher octane rating that allows use of engines with greater compression efficiency, and reduced well-to-wheel greenhouse gas emissions, outweighed the reduced energy content of the fuel relative to conventional gasoline.”

The motor and engine are connected to the rear wheels via a Tremec T5 five speed automated manual transmission. It has the performance and fuel economy of a standard transmission with some of the convenience of an automatic. At 75 pounds, the transmission brings the total weight of the powertrain up to 400 pounds.

That takes us to the battery. It is an 18.9 kWh lithium ion phosphate battery pack sourced from A123 Systems. It weighs more than the motor, engine, and transmission at 450 pounds. Its battery chemistry eliminates the risk of fire if the battery gets too hot, a problem that sometimes afflicts conventional lithium ion batteries.

In year three of the EcoCAR3 competition, the teams will refine their entries. Year four will concentrate on marketing strategies. Ohio State is looking forward to winning all four years of the contest.

Photo credit: US DOE

EcoCAR 2 winner OSU wins year one of North American EcoCAR 3 competition

The US Department of Energy and General Motors announced The Ohio State University (OSU) as the overall winning team for Year One of the EcoCAR 3 competition, a four-year collegiate engineering program that gives students the chance to design, build, and demonstrate cutting-edge, eco-friendly automotive technologies in the all-new 2016 Chevrolet Camaro. Virginia Tech and the University of Waterloo took second and third place respectively.

The judges decided that OSU showed all-around excellence in Year One, demonstrating a highly mature software development process, and as a result received a trophy, $10,000 and repeat winner bragging rights. The team earned a total of 937 points out of 1,000 and also took first place in the Communications and Project Management categories. Judges were impressed by their efforts in identifying a target market for their vehicle and branding strategy, including the tagline: “Classic.Recharged.”

As part of the EcoCAR 3 Competition, each university team chose a different innovation that they will incorporate into their competition vehicle. OSU’s was DRIVE: Driver Recommendation for Increased Vehicle Efficiency—an infotainment system that allows the driver to input a destination, then calculates the most efficient route and velocity to that destination.

This year really lays the foundation vehicle development, which is critical step in the process for future success. We have already begun vehicle dynamic analysis for next year and are excited to share some of our innovative features we plan to integrate into our vehicle.

—M.J. Yatsko, OSU Engineering Manager

The competing 16 North American university teams gathered in Seattle for several days of judged competition. Throughout the events, teams put their designs to the test, giving presentations to industry and government professionals based on their mechanical, electrical, control strategies, project initiation approval, outreach, project management, trade show display, and innovation topics.

The first year of EcoCAR 3 emphasized the use of math-based design tools and simulation techniques for designing a successful vehicle architecture that reduces energy consumption, well-to-wheel greenhouse gas emissions and tailpipe emissions. Each team will receive their 2016 Camaro this fall.

In years two, three and four, students will rebuild the vehicle based on their new architecture and continue to refine, test and improve the vehicle’s operation.

Without having the full picture of the attributes of the new 2016 Camaro, the students from The Ohio State University were able to develop a strategy that can turn this high-performance vehicle into a cutting-edge, eco-friendly alternative. Not only does the 2016 Camaro’s leaner, stiffer platform provide an optimal base vehicle for these students to achieve their powertrain goals, the exterior of the vehicle was designed to specifically enhance efficiency.

—Al Oppenheiser, Chevrolet Camaro Vehicle Chief Engineer

Established by DOE and GM, and managed by Argonne National Laboratory, EcoCAR 3 is the latest Advanced Vehicle Technology Competition (AVTC) aimed at developing the next generation of automotive leaders. The four-year program concludes summer 2018.

Additional sponsors joining the DOE and GM include the following: MathWorks, California Air Resources Board, Freescale, Clean Cities, AVL Powertrain Engineering, Robert Bosch, LLC, ETAS, PACCAR, dSPACE, Snap-On, Siemens PLM Software, GKN Driveline, Transportation Research Center, Denso, Champlain Cable, Woodward, Proterra, Ricardo, Mentor Graphics, New Eagle, Tesa Tape, Vector, Delphi, EcoMotors, EPRI, A123 Systems, and Flextronics.

EcoCAR 3 sponsors have provided more than $718 million in software, hardware and cash donations to the 16 participating universities in just the first year. The majority of this contribution is software, stressing the design emphasis of the program’s first year.

2016 Chevrolet Camaro Loses Weight, Adds Turbo Four For Fuel Economy

Muscle-car fans pretty much set the Internet on fire this weekend as news and photos of the redesigned 2016 Chevrolet Camaro coupe emerged.

The second generation of the reanimated Camaro pony car has tauter styling, more power, and less weight.

All of that adds up to a car with tauter handling that should prove a formidable competitor to last year's all-new 2015 Ford Mustang.

But Chevrolet has also made the 2016 Camaro more fuel efficient, prodded by ever-rising corporate average fuel economy standards.

Its base engine is a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder that produces 275 horsepower, mated to either a six-speed manual gearbox or an eight-speed automatic transmission.

Chevy says the four-cylinder will be the most fuel-efficient Camaro ever, although it's not the very first time Camaro has had a four-cylinder engine--one was briefly offered during the 1980s.

2016 Chevrolet Camaro Engineering Prototype

It is, however, the first time any Camaro has been offered with a factory-installed turbocharger. Acceleration from 0 to 60 mph is quoted at less than 6 seconds.

The four-cylinder Camaro will face off against the Mustang model fitted with a 310-hp 2.3-liter turbocharged EcoBoost engine. (The third U.S. pony car, the Dodge Challenger, has no four-cylinder option.)

Ford, however, charges $1,500 extra for the four-cylinder Mustang; its standard engine is a 300-hp 3.7-liter V-6.

Fuel-economy figures haven't yet been released by the EPA for the new 2016 Camaro, which will go on sale several months from now.

Chevy says the most efficient version will be rated at more than 30 mpg on the highway cycle.

The comparable Mustang is rated at 26 mpg (22 mpg city, 31 mpg highway) with a six-speed manual gearbox, or 25 mpg combined (21 mpg city, 32 mpg highway) with a six-speed automatic transmission.

2016 Chevrolet Camaro

Those ratings are set while running on regular fuel, although the EcoBoost Mustang is recommended to use premium fuel.

Its 310-hp power rating assumes the use of premium fuel--whereas on regular fuel, its power is estimated at 290 hp by industry trade journal Automotive News.

The 2016 Chevy Camaro is offered with two larger engines as well: a 335-hp 3.6-liter V-6 and a 455-hp 6.2-liter V-8, each also available with the six-speed manual or the eight-speed automatic transmission.

Chevrolet notes that both the V-6 and the V-8 are fitted with cylinder deactivation that allows them to run on just four cylinders under light loads, further saving fuel.

The high end of GM's energy efficiency scale is occupied by plug-in electric carslike the second-generation 2016 Chevy Volt and the upcoming 200-mile 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV battery-electric car.

In the gasoline world, smaller models like the new 2016 Spark minicar and the current Sonic subcompact give Chevy's highest gas-mileage ratings.

2016 Chevrolet Camaro

But even larger, heavier high-performance models like the Camaro are slowly getting more fuel-efficient too.

You can chalk that up to the effect of the CAFE standards that will steadily boost required fuel economy from now through 2025.