UVic EcoCAR Team – Arrival Video

The platform vehicle for building the car of the future is now on the University of Victoria campus. A team of UVic engineering students, competing in a continent-wide competition to design a fuel-efficient, reduced emissions vehicle, has taken delivery of a General Motors donated vehicle. EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge, along with headline sponsors the US Department of Energy (DOE) and General Motors (GM), challenges 17 universities across North America to redesign and reengineer a GM donated vehicle to further minimize fuel consumption and reduce emissions while retaining the vehicles performance and consumer appeal. The competition aims to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers by giving them the experience necessary to design efficient and clean vehicles. The UVic team has already placed second overall among competitors in the first phase of the competition, where it built a virtual model of this next generation hybrid vehicle, and simulated and roughly optimized the design using advanced software and computer modeling tools. That placing has earned the team the keys to the vehicle now on campus, so it can turn cutting-edge modeling and simulations into reality. EcoCAR provides students with leading edge knowledge on hybrid vehicle technology, and gives students hands-on design and engineering experience, says UVic engineering faculty member Dr. Zuomin Dong. Our students have worked hard this past year, and they are excited for the opportunity to …