Frequently Asked Questions
Question: What is Challenge X?
Challenge X is a competition series created by automotive industry, government, and academic partners that challenges university-level engineering students to decrease total energy consumption and emissions 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 as 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 GM 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 builds a sustainable transportation future. Year One of Challenge X will emphasize vehicle simulation, power train testing, and 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?
The U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors are the headline sponsors for the 2005 Challenge X competition; major funding, mentoring, and product donations will also be provided by National Instruments and The MathWorks. Argonne National Laboratory, a Department of Energy facility, will provide competition management, team evaluation, and technical and logistical support.
GM will donate new identical crossover 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?
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.
Question: When and where will the yearly competitions take place?
The first competition will take place in the June, 2005 at a GM facility. The competitions for Years Two and Three will take place in early summer of 2006 and 2007, at a GM proving ground or other facility in North America.
Question: How will the team’s vehicles be judged? Who are the judges and what are the criteria?
Competition judges will 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 will also be required to give oral presentations and submit a technical paper.
Question: What are some of the advanced technologies we might expect to see for this competition series?
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?
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.
