GM FastLane Blog

Challenge X Crosses the Finish Line

(Editor’s Note: Challenge X is a four-year competition series that challenged teams of students from 17 top North American universities to re-engineer a stock Chevrolet Equinox to achieve better fuel economy and lower greenhouse gas emissions, without sacrificing performance, utility and safety. It began in the 2004-2005 academic year and concluded today in Washington, D.C. GM and the U.S. Dept. of Energy [DOE] were the headline sponsors of Challenge X.)

By Beth Lowery
Vice President, GM Environment, Energy & Safety Policy

Today I had the privilege of waving the checkered flag at the final Challenge X finish line.

This is the second time in my life that I’ve been an official at an important race. Two years ago, I was the Official Starter at the GM FlexFuel 250 at Daytona International Speedway, which opened the 2006 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season.

And for the second consecutive year, Mississippi State University was the winning team today at Challenge X.

But Challenge X has been much more than just a race to see who takes home the first-place trophy; it is also part of an international race to find new choices to our current reliance on oil to supply the world’s automotive energy requirements.

In this extraordinary student engineering competition, governments from the U.S. and Canada, industry, and academia joined forces to explore sustainable and innovative vehicle solutions to energy and environmental issues.

The winning Challenge X team from Mississippi State designed a through-the-road parallel hybrid vehicle powered by a 1.9L GM direct injection turbo diesel engine fueled by bio diesel (B20).

In a very real sense, all of the teams were winners – as were GM and the DOE.

We’ve found Challenge X to be exceptionally valuable, not only for the students, but for the sponsors as well.

The program has provided students with the necessary hands-on education to learn the skills they need to start an engineering career with an important, competitive advantage.

In the bargain, GM has gained meaningful lessons from their fresh thinking, ideas, enthusiasm and talent.

In the four years of Challenge X, we’ve hired more than 50 of the student competitors.

Melanie Fox is among this group. Mel was part of the team from Penn State University for two years. She’s been with GM now for about three months and is working on the E-Flex development team as a battery integration engineer. Mel credits Challenge X with helping to motivate her to step out of her comfort zone — combustion research – and become involved with alternative energy technologies.

EcoCAR: The Next Student Challenge

And now, we’re on to our next student competition. It’s called EcoCAR.

Students who participate in EcoCAR will design and build advanced propulsion solutions based on the vehicle categories from the California Air Resources Board’s zero emission vehicle regulations.

This will be a tall order, because meeting these standards is virtually impossible with the mass-production zero-emission vehicle technology automakers have available today. We’re basically challenging the EcoCAR teams to find a way to produce zero-emission vehicle technology (fuel cell, battery electric, etc.) that consumers can afford to buy, and that manufacturers can build at scale affordably.

GM will provide 17 teams that represent universities from throughout the U.S. and Canada with production vehicles – in this case, a 2009 Saturn VUE crossover – parts, seed money, technical mentoring, and operational support throughout the three-year program.

I’m really looking forward to this new race, and I can’t wait to see what these future engineers come up with next.