The Ohio State/Wilberforce University Team has been named the Year Two champion of the EcoCAR Electric Vehicle (EV) Challenge, followed by Georgia Tech in second place and McMaster University (CA) in third place. The Year Two competition challenged teams to complete a series of vehicle events, comparable to tests automakers... Read more →

Argonne National Laboratory will host a public webinar on the challenges of recycling Li-ion batteries and possible solutions. Qiang Dai, sustainability analyst at Argonne, will show how anyone can measure the costs of recycling lithium-ion batteries and how the process affects the environment with Argonne’s free EverBatt tool. EverBatt is... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE), in coordination with General Motors and MathWorks, announced that the Georgia Institute of Technology has been named the winner of the EcoCAR Mobility Challenge, which tasked 11 North American universities with applying advanced vehicle technologies to a 2019 Chevrolet Blazer while considering emissions, safety,... Read more →

The North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) will cancel its June 2020 show in Detroit in light of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic sweeping across the world and the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s expected plans to repurpose TCF Center into a temporary field hospital. NAIAS will hold its next annual show... Read more →

The Geneva International Motor Show (GIMS), which was scheduled to open in three days and run until 15 March, has been cancelled due to the Swiss government’s response to the coronavirus. The Swiss Federal Council—the group that constitutes the federal government of Switzerland—held an extraordinary meeting today, categorized the situation... Read more →

SAE International announced the launch of the SAE AutoDrive Challenge II through a continued partnership with GM. Participating university teams will develop and demonstrate an autonomous vehicle (AV) that can navigate urban driving courses as described by SAE J3016 Standard Level 4 automation. The competition continues the strong partnership between... Read more →

The Ohio State University has been named The EcoCAR Mobility Challenge Year One champion, taking the lead in the premier four-year collegiate engineering competition. Rounding out the top three are Virginia Tech in second place and the University of Alabama in third place. EcoCAR—the latest US Department of Energy Advanced... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE), General Motors and MathWorks launched the EcoCAR Mobility Challenge, the latest DOE-sponsored Advanced Vehicle Technology Competition (AVTC), revealed the 12 competing universities and named the Chevrolet Blazer as the vehicle platform selected for the competition. The headline sponsors are the US Department of Energy,... Read more →

LG Chem, South Korea’s leading manufacturer of advanced lithium-ion batteries, is hosting its first open innovation contest—The Battery Challenge—to support start-ups specializing in new battery technology to strengthen its competitiveness in the industry. LG Chem will offer more than $1.9 million in funding to 8 selected start-up companies. The finalists... Read more →

For the second year running, Los Angeles is inviting innovative and environmentally-friendly entrepreneurs from around the world to push the envelope on urban mobility solutions from ride-sharing and zero-emission electric bikes and scooters to self-driving vehicles and flying cars. The LA New Mobility Challenge 2018 is a joint initiative of... Read more →

The Ohio State University has taken first place in the final year of EcoCAR 3, an Advanced Vehicle Technology Competition, sponsored by the US Department of Energy (DOE) and General Motors Co. (NYSE:GM). This is OSU’s fourth consecutive win. The team earned 895 out of 1000 overall points. Ohio State... Read more →

Net Impact, a global community of students and professionals who aspire to be effective drivers of social and environmental change, and Toyota announced the 3 finalists of the Next Generation Mobility Challenge. Launched in 2015, the Next Generation Mobility Challenge is a national competition from Toyota, the Toyota Mobility Foundation... Read more →

After a three-year hiatus, Michelin is rebooting the venerable Challenge Bibendum sustainable mobility event. The new Movin’On by Michelin, a global summit for action on the future of mobility, will be held in Montreal, Canada on 13-15 June 2017. The first Challenge Bibendum took place in 1998 with a course... Read more →

At WCX 17: SAE World Congress Experience, SAE International and General Motors announced the eight North American universities which will compete in the upcoming AutoDrive Challenge. This new autonomous vehicle design competition is a three-year challenge to develop and demonstrate a fully autonomous passenger vehicle. The competition’s technical goal is... Read more →

Simulation technology company Altair, together with the Center for Automotive Research (CAR), announced the winners of the 4th annual Altair Enlighten Award an award program created specifically to acknowledge innovation in vehicle weight reduction. The winner of the OEM-focused Full-Vehicle category was GM for the 2016 Cadillac CT6, a vehicle... Read more →

AVnu Alliance, Cisco and TTTech will host the Deterministic Ethernet Forum for automotive in-vehicle networking and the Industrial Internet of Things (IoT), on 23 October 2015 in Vienna, Austria. The forum will be an opportunity for leading automotive and industrial companies to discuss and influence the implementation of deterministic Ethernet... Read more →

Each year, at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Annual Merit Review and Peer Evaluation Meeting, the Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Program presents awards for contributions to the overall efforts of the Program and to recognize achievements in specific areas. At last week’s merit review meeting, DOE made awards to... Read more →

OSU’s series-parallel PHEV. Click to enlarge. The US Department of Energy and General Motors Co. announced that the Ohio State University (OSU) team was the overall winner of the EcoCAR 2: Plugging In to the Future finals. The OSU team’s engineered 2013 Chevrolet Malibu featured a series-parallel plug-in hybrid drive... Read more →

EcoCar 2 Malibu. Click to enlarge. At the SAE 2011 World Congress in Detroit, Michigan, US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs, David Sandalow, announced the official launch of the EcoCAR 2: Plugging into the Future competition and the sixteen university teams selected to participate.... Read more →

The Edison2 Very Light Car on the track. Credit: Edison2. Click to enlarge. The X PRIZE Foundation awarded $10 million to three teams who successfully completed the rigorous Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. The winning teams—Edison2 of Lynchburg, Virginia; X-Tracer of Winterthur, Switzerland; and Li-ion Motors Corp. of Mooresville, North... Read more →

Later this week, the UK’s Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership will host the inaugural LowCVP Low Carbon Champion Awards, recognizing best recognize best practice in vehicle manufacturers, fuel suppliers, fleet operators and developers of products and services that reduce greenhouse gases from the road transport sector. The winners will be announced... Read more →

University students from The Ohio State University earned top honors at the 2009 finals of the EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge competition in Toronto, Canada for their design of a Extended Range Electric Vehicle (EREV). The Ohio State University took first place out of 17 universities in the US and Canada... Read more →

by Bill Cooke On 20 April, the opening day of the SAE 2009 World Congress, the AVL Technology Leadership Theater presented a forum on “Green Mobility—The Long View”. Organized by Shane Chang at Honda Research Institute USA Inc., the session counted among its panelists: Professor John Heywood, Sun Jae Professor... Read more →

Some of the vehicles in the 2009 Shell Eco-Marathon Americas. Click to enlarge. The student team from Laval University (Quebec, Canada) took the grand prize in the “Prototype” category at the 2009 Shell Eco-Marathon Americas, held 15-18 April at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, CA, with 2,757.1 miles per... Read more →

Distribution of entries by fuel sources. Click to enlarge. The Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE, a competition designed to inspire a new generation of viable, super fuel-efficient vehicles, announced its official list of 111 Registered Teams. Having passed this first judging hurdle, these teams now move one step closer to... Read more →

Student engineers participating in EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge unveiled their vehicle architectures at the Washington Auto Show. The 17 designs range from systems using on-board hydrogen fuel cells to full battery-electric vehicles. EcoCAR, which is sponsored by the US Department of Energy (DOE) and General Motors (GM), as well as... Read more →

The Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE, a multimillion dollar competition designed to inspire a new generation of viable, super fuel-efficient vehicles (earlier post), has opened a Demonstration Division designed specifically for large, established automobile manufacturers. The new Division was created to address the fact that actual, high-volume production vehicles involve... Read more →

The Mississippi State winning Equinox. Mississippi State University, for the second consecutive year, earned top honors in the GM and US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Challenge X student engineering competition. Over the past nine months, the 2008 Challenge X: Crossover to Sustainability competition challenged 17 university teams from the US... Read more →

GM, the US Department of Energy, Natural Resources Canada and others are sponsoring a new national collegiate competition series to re-engineer a GM vehicle to achieve improved fuel economy and reduce emissions while retaining the vehicle’s performance and consumer appeal. EcoCAR: the NeXT Challenge will begin in the Fall of... Read more →

MUSIC system schematic. Click to enlarge. A one-day seminar, hosted by Coventry University (UK) on 17 December 2007, will present the results of an experimental project to develop the MUSIC (Merritt Unthrottled Spark Ignition Combustion) gasoline engine to an in-vehicle demonstration stage. The MUSIC gasoline engine promises to match or... Read more →

CALSTART has announced the 2007 winners of its Blue Sky Awards, selected for their market leadership and real actions in advanced transportation. The awards recognize outstanding marketplace contributions to clean air, energy efficiency and to the clean transportation industry overall by companies, organizations and individuals. Award recipients are selected for... Read more →

More than 30 teams have signed a letter of intent to compete for the Automotive X Prize (earlier post) once the prize is officially funded and launched. The Automotive X Prize follows the model of the Ansari X Prize for private space flight, offering a multi-million dollar purse—the exact amount... Read more →

The winner. Photo: David Freers Students from Mississippi State University took top honors at the third annual Challenge X: Crossover to Sustainable Mobility engineering competition, primarily sponsored by GM and the US Department of Energy (DOE). The Mississippi State team designed a through-the-road parallel hybrid electric with a 1.9-liter GM... Read more →

The Cal Poly vehicle: “Curb Hopper”. Click to enlarge. The team from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo today won the first Shell Eco-marathon Americas with a gasoline-fueled combustion engine vehicle that delivered 1,902.7 mpg. The Eco-marathon challenges student teams to design and build the most fuel-efficient vehicles, which are tested... Read more →

The X Prize Foundation has released its draft competition guidelines for the upcoming Automotive X Prize for public comment. The Automotive X Prize (AXP) follows the model of the Ansari X Prize for private space flight, offering a multi-million dollar purse—not yet specified, although “likely in excess of $10M”—to the... Read more →

In conjunction with next week’s Clean Heavy Duty Vehicle Conference 2007 (CHDV) in Los Angeles, CALSTART is hosting a Plug-in Hybrid Electric Truck (PHET) Workshop. The workshop will explore how the emerging interest in and technology for plug-in hybrids can be applied to medium- and heavy-duty trucks, and if it... Read more →

The North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit marks the beginning of the global auto show season, and often serves as a positioning venue where automakers introduce concepts as well as production models of new cars. Crossover vehicles were a common thread throughout the show. However, hybrids were more... Read more →

HUMMER O2. GM Advanced Design has won the Los Angeles Auto Show’s Design Challenge for the second year in a row. This year’s winning entry is a two-dimensional rendering of a 2015 Blue Sky Concept that addresses environmental sustainability, called the HUMMER O2. (Earlier post.) The 2006 Design Challenge theme... Read more →

The Shell Eco-marathon is coming back to the US as the Shell Eco-marathon Americas. The Eco-marathon concept started as the Shell Mileage Marathon in 1939 after a friendly wager between employees of Shell Oil’s research laboratory in Wood River, Illinois, as to whose car could get the better fuel mileage.... Read more →

Heading out to Beijing. In an event designed to demonstrate the global potential of its diesel platforms, Mercedes-Benz is sending thirty-six Mercedes-Benz E-Class diesels—thirty-three E 320 CDIs and three E 320 BLUETECs—on a long-distance journey of more than 13,600 kilometers (8,452 miles) to Beijing, where the fleet is scheduled to... Read more →

On paper, clean advanced technology diesel passenger cars and light-duty trucks should be charging into the US market. The changeover to Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel that takes affect this year—a profound change akin to the removal of lead from gasoline, according to the EPA—opens the door to advanced emissions aftertreatment... Read more →

In support of developing the Automotive X PRIZE, the X PRIZE Foundation has launched an associated website and blog to communicate its “mission, goals, and discoveries”. Announced earlier in the year, the goal of the Automotive X PRIZE is to stimulate automotive technology, manufacturing and marketing breakthroughs that reduce oil... Read more →

Nanotechnology holds promise for necessary breakthroughs in a number of critical energy sectors, including solar cells, thermoelectric conversion and transport, hydrogen storage, and electrochemical conversion and storage (i.e., batteries, capacitors and fuel cells), according to scientists participating in the first Energy Nanotechnology International Conference (ENIC2006) held June 26-28 at MIT.... Read more →

Brooks cools off his solar panels. Click to enlarge. Sunlight-propelled dragsters competed down a quarter-kilometer raceway in the second annual Solar Drag Race held in Wenatchee, Washington on June 24th. Unlike other solar race events, solar drag racers do not use batteries or other pre-energized devices. The racers’ only fuel... Read more →

UBC team and winning vehicle. Click to enlarge. Photo: Morgan Lok The University of British Columbia (UBC) took first in the collegiate division at the recent SAE Supermileage Competition with a vehicle that achieved 3,145 mpg (0.075 liters/100km)—the equivalent of driving from Vancouver to Halifax on a gallon of gas.... Read more →

Sketch of a concept solar car for the VDS. Image: Mitchell Joachim and William Lark. Students from around the world are participating in the MIT Vehicle Design Summit (VDS) this summer to design and build vehicles based on integrating hydrogen fuel cells, photovoltaics, biofuels, and human power. The VDS organizers... Read more →

With the 2006 Challenge Bibendum now wrapped up, the organizers have posted the results of both the technical tests and the rally. Technical scores are assigned on a letter basis (“A”, “B” etc.), and there is no overall technical winner. Scoring is relative within the class of vehicle, and the... Read more →

Virginia tech team and their winning hybrid. Students from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) took top honors today in the Challenge X event for this year, the second competition in a three-year series. The Virginia Tech team re-engineered their 2005 Chevrolet Equinox as a split-parallel hybrid... Read more →

Divisional average fuel economy for hybrids in the TdS Monte Carlo rally. Click to enlarge. The recently-concluded 2006 Tour del Sol attracted a range of stock, modified and original vehicles that participated in the three competitive events: the Monte Carlo-style Rally and High-Mileage Challenge; the Tour de Sol Championship; and... Read more →

By an overwhelming vote of 416 to 6, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5143, the H-Prize Act of 2006. (Earlier post.) The legislation, introduced by Research Subcommittee Chairman Bob Inglis (R-SC) and modified after its passage out of Committee, would, if it becomes law, establish a national prize competition... Read more →