FutureTruck 2000 Archive

FutureTruck Archive

2000 Competition

With only five months to complete their conversion of a stock Chevy Suburban into a hybrid electric vehicle, 15 student teams arrived at the General Motors Desert Proving Ground in Arizona on June 7, 2000. They had worked hard to meet the performance and design goals that would make them winners in this advanced vehicle competition. Awards were given for both team effort and vehicle performance.

These vehicles represented a considerable undertaking by the students, requiring them to design, develop, and test their concepts. The teams chose hybrid vehicle strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve fuel economy. Moving from a stock powertrain to a hybrid powertrain requires overhauling the entire vehicle. Teams did everything: replacing components, adding new pieces, packaging the vehicle, and developing the control strategy.

Promising Results

FutureTruck 2000 consisted of rigorous dynamic and static design events to rate everything from vehicle design to greenhouse gas emissions to consumer acceptability. These design-based events provide the students with a platform for presenting their ideas and defending their decisions. Teams were evaluated by industry and government experts on the application and implementation of the advanced technologies used to achieve the FutureTruck goals as well as the vehicle design in its entirety.

Five vehicles demonstrated a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over the stock vehicle, though they did not meet the competition goal of a two-thirds reduction. Running on E85, the University of Maryland's pollutant levels were just lower than the CARB TLEV levels for light-duty vehicles. Maryland's controlling pollutant was NMHC (measured at 0.1259 g/mi).