MSU Team Earns First Place Finish in EcoCAR 2 Competition

May 25, 2012

Mississippi State's alternative vehicle design team was named the Year One winner at the EcoCAR 2: Plugging In to the Future competition which was held in Los Angeles, CA. 15 universities were in attendance at the 6 day judged event with $100,000 to compete for.

EcoCAR 2 is a three-year competition sponsored by the U.S. Deprtment of Energy (DOE), General Motors (GM) and 25 other government and industry leaders which gives the students an opportunity to gain real-world, eco-friendly automotive engineering experience while striving to improve the energy efficiency of a 2013 Chevrolet Malibu. EcoCAR 2 teams put their designs to the test, giving presentations to industry and government professionals based on their mechanical, electrical, control and HIL strategies, project initiation approval, outreach and business plans and trade show display during the event.

The MSU team won $13,000 in prize money and five individual category awards: Best Facilities Inspection, Best Final Technical Report, Best Project Initiation Approval Presentation, Best Trade Show Evaluation and Best Controls Presentation. Team member Rachel Wheeler won the Women in Engineering Award. Mississppi State earned 952 of a possible 1,000 competition points and finished ahead of second place Ohio State and third place the University of Waterloo. The team will now turn its attention to a GM donated Chevrolet Malibu and will spend the next year implementing its designs and will refine its vehicle to meet consumer expectations and present it as a production-ready prototype.

The Mississippi State team was formed eight years ago for ChallengeX, a four-year competition that they won. Most recently the team re-engineered an SUV that earns more than 118 mpg and won multiple awards during the three-year EcoCAR competition.

This year's team consists of more than 80 undergraduate and graduate students from 16 different majors and is led by faculty adviser Marshall Molen.


To view the full press release, please see: Mississippi State University. Also, see the press release regarding the competition from MarketWatch.