Across the country, teams of students at 15 different universities are in the middle of a four-year project, dissecting an electric vehicle and figuring out ways to make it even better. The program, called the EcoCar EV Challenge, was founded more than three decades ago by the US Department of Energy and is run by the DOE's Argonne National Laboratory.
Over the last 35 years, more than 30,000 students from 95 universities have participated in the EcoCar Challenge, part of the DOE's Advanced Vehicle Technology Competition. Each segment spans four years, with the most recent cycle beginning in 2023 with a new Cadillac Lyriq donated by the General Motors automaker.
The students take this competition very seriously, as participation alone brings a lot of benefits, including the potential for a lifelong career path.
Mobility advancement in progress
One of the organization's goals is to challenge teams to "identify and address specific challenges with equity in the future of mobility through the application of innovative hardware and software solutions" while working with underserved populations. Through this process, the student-run teams are discovering untapped potential for future EV development and finding solutions that could help local and national communities.
The entire first year is packed with intense research and planning. Students don't even get to put their hands on a car until year two; meanwhile, they learn how to work together and communicate as a team. They run simulations with propulsion controls and modeling, and by the time they have access to a vehicle, they're ready to dive in.
University of Alabama student Corban Walsh explains that during the prototyping process, automakers like Cadillac end up with a fleet of pre-production vehicles that can't be resold. Walsh and his team were given a practically new all-electric Lyriq with just 17,000 miles (27,400 km) on it, and they decided their goal was to transform it from a rear-wheel-drive to an all-wheel-drive configuration and boost the horsepower from 300 to 550 (223 to 373 kW). With tasks like that, one might think this is an ideal club for car fanatics. But Walsh says the team has diverse interests and is in fact very software- and planning-focused.