Virginia Tech’s EcoCAR 2 team moving into gear, aims for second win
Fresh off Virginia Tech’s domination of the three-year EcoCAR Challenge which finished this past June, the College of Engineering Hokies are ready to dive head-on into EcoCAR 2. The rules will be much the same: Take a standard automobile and re-engineer to be more efficient, reducing greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining consumer acceptability, stock appearance and safety.
On 19 September 2011, Virginia Tech’s team was presented with a $25,000 donation from General Motors, a longtime supporter of the EcoCAR team and a co-sponsor of the North America competition. In the photo above, General Motors’s Keith Van Houten presents team leader Jesse Alley of Kingsport, Tenn., a faux giant check. Van Houten is an alumnus of the Virginia Tech’s mechanical engineering program and served as a close adviser on the recent EcoCAR Challenge project.
“I love being part of it and coming back to campus,” he said. “This is my eighth year as a mentor. For this competition, my role as a mentor is to be a General Motors liaison to the EcoCAR 2 teams to help them be successful.”
Added Alley: “I’ve been around long enough to realize what an incredible opportunity the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors provide to the students by organizing and supporting EcoCAR 2. It really is a unique once in a lifetime opportunity – there is not any other competition that can measure up to the EcoCAR or EcoCAR 2.”
Serving again as faculty adviser to the Virginia Tech EcoCAR team will be Doug Nelson, a professor of mechanical engineering.
—Reporting by Katie Wilkes.
