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The Advanced Vehicles EcoCAR Garage provides capabilities for vehicle modeling, integration and testing for the advancement of hybrid, electric and autonomous vehicle technology.

Researchers and student teams, including the EcoEagles, use this facility to develop advanced vehicles and prepare for international competitions, such as the Department of Energy, General Motors and MathWorks-sponsored EcoCAR series.

The garage space, located in Lehman 186, is equipped for the development and testing of the hardware that goes into a state-of-the-art, consumer-acceptable vehicle. The design laboratory, located in Lehman 171-B, offers top-of-the-line computers, computer-aided design systems, finite element analysis (FEA) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software, and a "hardware in the loop" system — allowing simulation, development and rapid testing of vehicle architectures and components.

This space is card-access controlled, enabling student researchers to work in the space on their own schedule with faculty permission and is used as part of the Mechanical Engineering senior design for the High-Performance Vehicles and Robotics track.

The goals of this lab include:

• Design and construction of advanced vehicles
• Education and workforce development
• Advancement of hybrid, electric and autonomous vehicle technology

Equipment

• Vehicle lift
• Specialized high-voltage work area
• Mechanical and electrical fabrication equipment
• Chassis dynamometer 

Research Capacity

Student teams working in this lab have constructed five vehicles, including a hybrid bio-diesel Saturn Vue, a hybrid bio-diesel Chevrolet Malibu, an E85 hybrid Chevrolet Camaro, a hybrid Chevrolet Blazer and an electric Cadillac LYRIQ.