FAQ:

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What is ChallengeX: Crossover to Sustainable Mobility?
Who is involved with the Challenge X program?
Who will participate in ChallengeX?
When and where will the yearly competitions take place?
How will the team’s vehicles be judged? Who are the judges and what are the criteria?
What is some of the advanced technology that we might expect to see for this competition series?
What previous competitions were similar to Challenge X? Did any of the technologies devised in those competitions ever make it into production vehicles?
How did teams spend most of Year One?
How will teams spend most of Year Two?
What is a crossover vehicle?
What are Alternative Fuels?

Question:
What is Challenge X: Crossover to Sustainable Mobility?

Answer:
Challenge X is a competition series created by automotive industry, government and academic partners that challenges university-level engineering students to decrease total cycle emissions and energy consumption in a crossover vehicle, while maintaining or exceeding vehicle utility and performance. The competition is modeled after the General Motors (GM) Global Vehicle Development Process, and will closely follow current real-world automotive design and engineering practices. The Challenge X program, launched in the 2004-2005 academic year, is a three-year program. Seventeen student teams from accredited university-level engineering programs across North America were selected to participate in the program.

Students will work on a Chevrolet Equinox, a crossover vehicle platform, and integrate cutting-edge advanced automotive technologies and alternative fuels, such as hydrogen, ethanol, and biodiesel, to develop an approach that minimizes total environmental impact and helps to build a sustainable transportation future. Year One of Challenge X will emphasize vehicle modeling and simulation, and subsystem development and testing, giving teams a greater understanding of the engineering trade-offs that occur in the early stages of vehicle design. The students will be challenged to do intensive modeling, simulation and testing that will guide their hardware development – a key phase of the GM Vehicle Development Process.

At the end of Year One, teams will receive their crossover vehicles and will build upon their models and simulation efforts to bring their designs to life. The powertrains developed in the first year will be installed into vehicles in the second year, giving the teams a head start on the vehicle integration process. General Motors will partner with The MathWorks and National Instruments to provide teams with the hardware, software and technical support they need to approach this engineering challenge.

During Years Two and Three, the educational emphasis will be placed on validating the modeling and simulation tools and using them to refine and improve the vehicles to fully realize the total environmental impact of their vehicle designs while maintaining its utility and performance.

Question:
Who is involved with the Challenge X program?

Answer:
The U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors are the headline sponsors for the Challenge X competition; major funding, mentoring and product donations will also be provided by 30 additional sponsors, including National Instruments, The MathWorks and Natural Resources Canada. Argonne National Laboratory, a Department of Energy facility, will provide competition management, team evaluation and technical and logistical support.

GM will donate new identical stock Chevrolet Equinox vehicles to each team at the end of the first year of the competition, plus two control vehicles for the competition. GM will invest up to $10,000 in each team’s subsystems and parts over the three-year program. GM will also donate use of its engineering, testing, and proving ground facilities for student workshops and competitions. Finally, GM will provide highly controlled access to its intellectual property and provide staff support — including a program manager, team mentors, and event judges — and communications support for the competition series.

Question:
Who will participate in Challenge X?

Answer:
Seventeen university engineering teams from the United States and Canada were selected to participate in the three-year competition. The selection process, open to all accredited engineering schools in the United States and Canada, began with an October 2003 request for proposals. Teams were selected in February 2004, and Challenge X participants were announced in Spring 2004.

The participating universities are Michigan Technological University, Mississippi State University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, San Diego State University, Texas Technological University, University of Akron, University of California, Davis, University of Michigan, University of Tennessee, University of Texas at Austin, University of Tulsa, University of Waterloo, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and West Virginia University.

Question:
When and where will the yearly competitions take place?

Answer:
The first competition took place on June 5-9, 2005 at GM University in Auburn Hills and GM’s proving ground in Milford, MI.. The competitions for Year Two is set for May 30 - June 8, 2006 at GM's proving grounds in Mesa, AZ.  Year Three competition returns to GM’s proving grounds in Milford, MI.

Question:
How will the team’s vehicles be judged? Who are the judges and what are the criteria?

Answer:
Competition judges hail from industry, government, and academia. Team vehicles will be judged extensively in categories such as towing capacity, acceleration, off-road performance, greenhouse gas impact, total well-to-wheels fuel economy, emissions, and consumer acceptability. Teams are also required to give technical oral presentations and submit SAE-style technical papers.

Question:
What is some of the advanced technology that we might expect to see for this competition series?

Answer:
We will likely see teams compete with hybrid vehicles — vehicles that use both an internal combustion engine and electric motor as sources of power. Teams also will be exploring the use of advanced propulsion systems, lightweight materials, and other advanced techniques for achieving the goals of improved fuel economy and lower emissions. Teams likely will also be testing and using alternative fuels for their vehicles, such as hydrogen, ethanol, and biodiesel. The driving force of this competition is for the students to devise other — perhaps unprecedented — creative solutions for reducing their vehicle's total environmental impact and developing a sustainable transportation future.

Question:
What previous competitions were similar to Challenge X? Did any of the technologies devised in those competitions ever make it into production vehicles?

Answer:
Since 1987, the U.S. Department of Energy has sponsored more than 45 advanced vehicle technology competitions through Argonne National Laboratory, including Formula SAE, Tour de Sol, Propane Challenge, FutureCar, Ethanol Vehicle Challenge, and FutureTruck. These competitions represent a unique coalition of government, industry, and academia who have joined forces to explore sustainable vehicle solutions.

Several innovations and ongoing research projects have resulted from the competitions. Most recently, in the FutureTruck 2003 competition, eight teams surpassed the on-road fuel economy of the control vehicle (a 2002 Ford Explorer). The University of Wisconsin – Madison achieved 21.2 miles per gallon gasoline equivalent (a 35% improvement) over the control vehicle. The greenhouse gas emissions of eight student vehicles were less than those of the control vehicle, with West Virginia University reducing GHG emissions by an incredible 48%. In the 2000 Ethanol Vehicle Challenge, the winning vehicle in the emissions event (University of Illinois at Chicago) met the California Air Resources Board ultra-low emissions vehicle standard - one of the toughest in the world. The University of Texas at Austin developed an ethanol distillation system that they patented with Ford Motor Company.

Question:
How did teams spend most of Year One?

Answer:
Year One of Challenge X focused on the use of math-based modeling tools for vehicle design and vehicle and subsystem control. In addition, teams spent much of the first year researching, comparing and selecting advanced technologies that meet the Challenge X goals. Students used computer-based math modeling tools to objectively compare and select the advanced technologies used in the overall design of their Challenge X vehicles. One of the objective comparisons considered in this process is the "well-to-wheel" analysis used to select the fuel. This analysis includes upstream energy use and emissions produced from refining, as well as regulated vehicle emissions.

Teams also developed and used rapid prototyping and hardware in the loop (HIL) tools to validate their models and control systems. With the help of Challenge X industry sponsors, many different products and solutions were made available to support the students' efforts in developing their own rapid prototyping and HIL tools.

After the selection and approval of their Challenge X vehicle design, each team procured hardware, developed software, performed subsystem testing and designed a plan to integrate their selected strategy in a vehicle. With continued use of math tools, correlation with the acquired subsystems and development of control strategies, the teams have the chance to showcase their mastery of their chosen propulsion and supporting subsystems.

All teams completed this first year of Challenge X, earning their keys to a new Chevrolet Equinox and a place in the second phase of the competition.

Question:
How will teams spend most of Year Two?

Answer:
The final two years of Challenge X focus on the second and third key phases of the vehicle development process - vehicle integration and full vehicle development.  In Years Two and Three, each university team will integrate and refine their advanced powertrain and other vehicle subsystems into their Equinox.  Year Two focuses on powertrain development and demonstration of the energy use and emissions goals of the competition.  Team vehicles will be judged extensively in categories such as towing capacity, acceleration, off-road performance, greenhouse gas impact, total well-to-wheels fuel economy, emissions, and consumer acceptability.  Teams will also be required to give technical oral presentations and submit SAE-style technical papers.

Question:
What is a crossover vehicle?

Answer:
The definition of a crossover vehicle is not set in stone, but many in the industry consider them vehicles with sport utility vehicle or light truck features that are built off of traditional passenger car architectures.
Crossover vehicles have a blend of car and truck characteristics, but typically don't have the same durability and towing capacity as traditional truck-based SUVs.

Question:
What are Alternative Fuels?

Answer:
Alternative fuels are typically not based on petroleum and are desirable because they help provide energy security and environmental benefits. As legislated by the Energy Policy Act of 1992, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) currently recognizes the following as alternative fuels:

• Alcohols: ethanol and methanol
• Compressed natural gas (CNG): natural gas under high pressure
• Electricity: stored in batteries for use by electric motors
• Hydrogen: a clean-burning type of gas
• Liquefied natural gas (LNG): natural gas that is kept very cold, compressed to a liquid
• Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG, also known as "propane"): hydrocarbon gases kept under low moderate pressure as a liquid
• Liquids made from coal: gasoline and diesel fuel that are not made from petroleum
• Biodiesel: a transportation fuel for use in diesel engines that is produced from similar to diesel fuel, but made from plant oils, or animal fats, or agricultural by-products (often blended with conventional diesel fuel)

THREE COMMON ALTERNATIVE FUELS THE TEAMS MAY USE INCLUDE:
BIODIESEL
Biodiesel is an alternative fuel that can be used in conventional diesel engines, so it was used in previous advanced vehicle technology competitions by teams with diesel-driven vehicles. The fuel is typically combined with petroleum-based diesel fuel in a 20% blend, called "B20," although other blend levels can be used, depending on the cost of the fuel and the desired benefits.

Biodiesel can be manufactured from vegetable oils, animal fats, and recycled greases. U.S. producers typically use recycled cooking oils and soy oil. Through a process called transesterification, the organic oils are combined with alcohol (ethanol or methanol) and chemically altered to form fatty esters, such as ethyl or methyl ester. The biomass-derived ethyl or methyl esters can then be blended with conventional diesel fuel or used as a "neat" fuel (100% biodiesel).

ETHANOL
Ethanol is a high-octane, domestically produced, renewable liquid fuel, made by the fermentation of plant sugars. Typically produced from corn and other grain products, ethanol can also be made from other biomass resources, such as agricultural and forestry wastes, or specially grown energy crops.
When used as a motor fuel, ethanol is commonly used in a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, called "E85," which is an alternative fuel as defined by DOE. E85 burns cleaner than gasoline, has an octane of approximately 105, sells for about the same price as unleaded gasoline, is biodegradable, and does not contaminate water.

HYDROGEN
Fuel-cell-powered vehicles require hydrogen, an alternative fuel, to power the fuel cell. These vehicles usually do very well in the events that measure emissions and greenhouse gas impact because hydrogen is a very clean fuel and hydrogen production generates very few greenhouse gases as calculated by the GREET model. (As a non-carbon-based fuel, the exhaust is free of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that some scientists believe may be building up in the atmosphere and contributing to changes in the world's climate.)

The hydrogen is compressed and stored in onboard cylinders. A key problem faced by the fuel cell vehicle is that hydrogen storage tanks must be fairly large because compressed hydrogen contains less energy per volume compared with liquid fuels, such as gasoline. Hydrogen can also be cooled to produce liquid hydrogen, but it is costly and presents other technical challenges.