The issues of energy efficiency, global climate change and cleaner air pose challenges not only in the U.S., but across the globe. To address these concerns, government, industry and academia sponsor student-engineering competitions to demonstrate and extend the progress toward a common goal: sustainable mobility.

For more than 20 years, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Government of Canada and various academic and domestic auto industry partners have sponsored more than two dozen engineering competitions, the most recent competition being EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge. The program offers engineering participants valuable experience in real-world engineering practices and provides an excellent opportunity for communications students to develop and refine their public relations and marketing skills. Through this important partnership between government and industry, EcoCAR aims to inspire and support the next generation of scientists, engineers and communicators to unite around the common goal of sustainable mobility.

EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge is a three-year collegiate engineering competition established by DOE and General Motors (GM) and managed by Argonne National Laboratory. More information is available at www.ecocarchallenge.org and at www.greengarageblog.org.

The competition challenges 16 universities across North America to re-engineer a 2009 GM-donated vehicle to improve fuel economy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while retaining the vehicle’s performance and consumer appeal.

Students design and build a variety of cutting-edge clean vehicle solutions, including full-function electric, range-extended electric, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and fuel cell technologies. In addition, they incorporate lightweight materials into the vehicles, improve aerodynamics and utilize alternative fuels such as ethanol, biodiesel and hydrogen.

The competition is broken down into three year-long segments. Year 2 wrapped up on May 28th, 2010 after a round of vehicle testing in Yuma, Arizona. Year 3 will officially kick off in September, 2010. 

• Year 1: Vehicle architectures are developed using modeling and simulation
• Year 2: Designs are turned into functioning prototype vehicles
• Year 3: Vehicles are refined to near-showroom quality

More than two dozen government and industry organizations sponsor EcoCAR including headline sponsors, DOE and GM. GM provides production vehicles, vehicle components, seed money, technical mentoring and operational support. DOE and its research and development facility, Argonne National Laboratory, provide competition management, team evaluation and technical and logistical support.