Competition creates fuel-efficient SUVs

Advanced Battery Technology,  Apr 2003  

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According to EE Times, electrical and mechanical engineering students in the FutureTruck 2003 competition are modifying 15 identical 2002 Ford Explorers using virtually any technology, fuel, or construction technique while maintaining the qualities that made the model popular. Managed by Argonne National Laboratory, the competition challenges 15 university teams from the U.S. and Canada to re-engineer a mid-size truck or SUV for lower emissions and 25% better fuel economy.

In the current two-year competition cycle, contestants have run their vehicles in the first of two performance competitions for fuel efficiency, emissions, acceleration, handling, consumer acceptance and off-road performance to determine the overall winner. Now, more than halfway through the challenge, they are further modifying and refining their entries for.the final competition in June.

Pat Ford, project manager of the FutureTruck program at Ford Motor Co., estimates that traditional design practices could improve mileage another 5% to 10% in a conventional five-passenger Taurus. But beyond that, he said, most future energy savings would probably need to come from fuel cells and hybrid-electric propulsion systems.

While most of the trucks in the FutureTruck program still run internal combustion engines under their hoods, the power plants replacing the original 4-liter V-6 range from an ethanol-burning four-cylinder, 1.8-liter turbocharged Mazda unit to an assortment of compact diesel engines outfitted with experimental catalytic soot traps.

The two schools that developed hydrogen fuel cells are being forced to move to different technologies after their fuel cell supplier was acquired by General Electric last year, and dropped out of the program.

Penn State EE students Paul Minear and Jon Weidner recently brought a hybrid diesel-electric Explorer to a FutureTruck event at National Instruments Corp. in Austin, Texas. At first glance the hybrid looks like a stock Explorer, but the resemblance fades under the hood, where a little four-cylinder 2.5-liter diesel unit has replaced the gasburning 4-liter V-6. It also carries a few dozen yards of added plumbing, several mysterious electronics boxes, and some non-Ford cable bundles that are designed to carry high amperages.

A crawl under the vehicle reveals the electric side of the drive train - a 37kW ac induction motor originally used as the primary drive in a Solectria Force electric car, coupled in parallel with the output shaft of the truck's five-speed transmission, just ahead of the transfer case.

Most of the Explorer's stock interior has been left intact, with the lead-acid battery pack tucked neatly in the rear of the car. One might never suspect the big changes under the hood except for a few non-stock switches on the dash and a large cluster of sensing and control modules shoehorned between the first two passenger seats.

Software remains one of the things still undergoing significant change as the car approaches its final configuration for the 2003 competition in June. While all the functions, such as transitions between pure-gas and gas-electric propulsion and regenerative braking all work, the algorithms continue to be refined to yield the best efficiency and the best possible driver experience.

These and other changes, they said, should make the vehicle perform as well as an out-of-the-box Explorer under most conditions, and perhaps even better. But extended uphill pulls with a large trailer in tow or highly demanding off-road conditions will eventually deplete the electric drive system's reserves faster than they can be replaced, forcing the car to rely solely on diesel power.

Last year, when the trucks were not fully modified or fine-tuned, seven of the 15 vehicles matched or bettered stock SUV mileage.

Ford is preparing to market a hybrid version of its Escape mini-SUV in 2003, Pat Ford said, with a goal of offering it at only a slightly higher cost than a conventional Escape. It's expected to deliver 29mpg to 30mpg in city driving and 35mpg to 40mpg on the highway. The hybrid Escape caps years of research by Ford but it also borrows ideas from university research and earlier student engineering competitions such as FutureTruck.

Copyright Seven Mountains Scientific, Inc. Apr 2003
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