The U.S. Department of Energy is pleased to partner with General Motors and MathWorks to sponsor the 13th Annual DOE Advanced Vehicle Technology Competition series, the EcoCAR EV Challenge.
The EcoCAR EV Challenge is at the cutting edge of automotive engineering education and challenges students to engineer a next generation battery electric vehicle that utilizes automation and vehicle-to-everything connectivity to implement energy efficient and customer-pleasing features, while meeting the decarbonization need of the automotive industry.
15 North American universities have been selected to compete in the EcoCAR EV Challenge and West Virginia University is one of them.
General Motors will provide each team with a 2023 Cadillac LYRIQ and the team will have four years to demonstrate the potential of advanced propulsion systems, connected and automated vehicle technologies and other innovative technologies to analyze energy efficiency. EcoCAR teams will utilize a combination of on-board sensors and bidirectional vehicle-to-everything connectivity to implement energy efficient and customer-pleasing automated control features. Teams also will refine advanced powertrain along with charging and thermal systems to use grid electricity intelligently.
EcoCAR EV Challenge includes a major focus on equity in mobility and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and is incorporated into all areas of the program, including an Innovation in Mobility Equity initiative, which challenges the teams to identify and address specific equity and electrification issues in mobility through the application of innovative hardware and software solutions.
The competition kicked off in Fall 2022 and concludes in 2026.
More information on the EcoCAR challenge can be found on the Department of Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering website.
