The Ohio Transportation Engineering Conference is a two-day conference attended by over 2,400 people from across the United States.  OTEC is co-sponsored by the Ohio Department of Transportation and The Ohio State University, and the conference is organized to provide something for everyone interested in Ohio’s transportation industry.  The program addresses the latest policies and technical information, as well as covering new ideas in transportation policies, planning, design, construction, maintenance, operation, local government, and management of transportation resources.

Ohio States EcoCAR team attending the conference and was given a introduction at the opening ceremony's.  Many civil engineers came by as well as a few public officials to discuss the project and learn more about what Ohio State is doing to contribute to the state and nations future.  The EcoCAR competition was explained and the Challenge X vehicle was there to give the people an idea of what the competition is and what goes into it.  It was a great opportunity as technical sessions and informational sessions were accesible for members of the team.  Ohio States Team received praise for its involvement, student research and development.  Look forward to going back next year.

Name Our Car! 

We need a great name for our GM donated hybrid vehicle, and you can be the special person to name our new car!! Submit a name to our "Name the Car" competition and if you are one of the top 5 names you will win a $5 Starbucks gift card, and if your name is selected you will win an extra $10 gift card! Email submissions to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by December 3rd!

After an extensive design process, A123 has generously provided the OSU EcoCAR team with the battery pack that will make their range extended hybrid possible. The battery will provide enough power to drive the vehicle, all electric, for 40 miles and up to full speed and full performance. The battery packages into the GM donated vehicle with very little intrusion to passenger compartment and trunk cargo bay. The battery will be liquid cooled using a vacuum brazed heat exchanger designed by the EcoCAR team. With the batteries now in hand, the OSU team is excited to get buy and begin construction and assembly of the battery packs and most importantly begin HIL communication testing and fault detection/prevention.

Thanks to A123 for the support and prompt delivery of such a crucial part of our vehicle design.

EcoCAR controls team, mainly Kerem Bayar and John Kruckenberg, have recently been working on converting the energy management strategy of the vehicle to a format that is applicable in real time. Although the control strategy that was used last year, which is called the Equivalent Fuel Consumption Minimization Strategy (ECMS), was working quite well in computer simulations, some problems occurred when it was tried in real time simulations using the dSpace hardware in the loop system. The team is converting this optimization strategy from a “for loop” structure to an entire “simulink blocks structure” which will help Matlab execute the strategy faster and presumably decrease the amount of computation the controller needs to execute at  every instant of time and as a results will yield to a robust real time ECMS.

We are excited to have a number of new team members join us this fall! Check out our Team Members pages to get to know us as we continue to update our member bios.

Over the past few weeks, we have been working to get new team members up to speed. For engineering team members, this has included machine shop training led by Eric Schacht, an NX computer-aided design led by Tony Morgan, and an introduction to Matlab/Simulink and our team’s vehicle simulator led by John Kruckenberg. We have also been learning how to use the chassis dynamometer at the Center for Automotive Research, as well as going through high voltage safety trainings to make sure we all know how to work with high voltage systems safely.

Our Business/Outreach team has been doing a number of outreach events lately. We are currently at the two-day Ohio Transportation Engineering Conference, sponsored by the Ohio Department of Transportation and The Ohio State University, where we set up our trade show display from the Year 1 EcoCAR competition, along with our Challenge X hybrid electric vehicle, to reach out to transportation officials, government, and members of the academic community.

Tuesday, October 6, we had the unveiling of our new car. The whole EcoCAR team came to the Center for Automotive Research to cheer on the arrival of the new car, and of year two of the competition. We are now looking forward to showing off the new car to the Ohio State students, and to the Columbus Community. We are hoping to get them involved and excited about this wonderful opportunity, and to help us make a difference!