At the St. Ignace Welcome Center Saturday, January 12, Michigan Technological University students present a unique hybrid vehicle they produced for Challenge X, an international contest involving 17 select universities from the United States and Canada. Every university involved has taken a different approach to reduce emissions and increase gas mileage on a stock vehicle. To test Michigan Tech's twoengine hybrid, which has taken four years to create, the students are on a drive around the perimeter of Lake Michigan, where they have been stopping to give lectures at high schools and to visit the homes of Tech students. Pictured (front, from left) are team leader Todd Cimermancic, Mindy Saxton; (back) Andrew Best, and Bill Bland. A flashy, black and white Chevrolet Equinox arrived at the Michigan Welcome Center in St. Ignace Saturday, January 12. With the exception of a large husky's head painted on the side and several decals, it looked like a standard sport utility vehicle. Under the hood, however, it was anything but a conventional SUV.

The engine was the result of four years of innovation by Michigan Technological University students, who are in the process of testing an environmentally friendly vehicle they created for Challenge X, an international competition involving 17 universities. Over the past four years, teams have taken standard cars and applied advanced technologies to create low-emission vehicles with good gas mileage.

To test their achievement, the Michigan Tech students took a 1,800-mile drive around the perimeter of Lake Michigan, making St. Ignace one of their stops, before meeting their 16 peer vehicles in May. Then, all teams will drive their creations through Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, and finish at the White House in Washington, D.C., where the winning vehicle will be announced.

Four years ago, students at Michigan Tech and other chosen schools were challenged to redesign an Equinox. They had to find a way to cut fuel emissions in half, and increase gas mileage by 30%, while maintaining normal drivability.

According to team leader Todd Cimermancic, 23, a senior in mechanical engineering at MTU, the vehicle is well on its way to meeting the specifications.

The methods by which the teams have gone about achieving their goals varies widely. All 17 vehicles have different power trains, Mr. Cimermancic said.

At MTU, students removed the vehicle's original six-cylinder engine and replaced it with a fourcylinder engine to power the front wheels. To power the back wheels, they installed a 55-kilowatt electric motor, enabling the vehicle to maintain all-wheel-drive capability, which they have needed during their trek around the lake.

Over the past four years, to earn eight credits, various students have labored to mount and integrate two very different power trains, Mr. Cimermancic said.

"It is a step forward," said team member Bill Bland, referring to MTU's vehicle.

Cars of the future must transition from standard gas guzzlers to vehicles that rely on alternative fuels, Mr. Bland said, although, currently, North America lacks infrastructure to provide for vehicles that rely completely on alternative fuels.

Recognizing the preference ofdrivers in North America, General Motors, a major promoter of Challenge X, has focused on larger vehicles first, Mr. Bland added.

Mr. Cimermancic has been on the Challenge X team since the beginning. This year, he picked up an extra minor to stay at school while the vehicle is finished. He will be on the drive to the White House.

An important part of creating the vehicle has been to minimize the work the gas engine must do and to maximize the potential of the electrical engine, he explained. Tech's SUV is a parallel-throughthe road design, which means that the two engines have no mechanical connection to each other. The only link, really, is the road they travel on, he said.

One aspect of the design that turned out to be especially tricky, he added, was synchronizing the two engines without reducing performance.

"We want it to drive just as it did when it left the factory at GM, but not to have anything in common with the original design," he said.

The team is working hard on the fuel economy aspect right now, he added. The 30% decrease in gasoline consumption has been attained when the car is driven at 50 miles per hour or less. A standard Equinox gets 16 to 18 miles to the gallon. Tech's car gets 20 to 25.

To achieve a 50% reduction in emissions, the team is working on a custom-built catalytic converter. Frequent emissions testing is too expensive, so the team is relying on estimates, but the vehicle showed a reduction in emissions when tested two years ago, Mr. Cimermancic said. The harder an engine works, the more emissions it produces. The challenge is to get the converter to align properly with the engine load.

Producing a vehicle that uses less fuel is the first part of Tech's method of reducing emissions. The right catalytic converter to remove unburned gasses is the second. Mr. Cimermancic said the team expects to meet its emission mandate by May.

The students also continue to work on drivability issues, he added.

"No one is going to buy a car that makes strange sounds, rattles, or thumps when it goes over bumps," which are complications the team has confronted, he told The St. Ignace News. Ultimately, the vehicle should seem identical to its conventional counterpart at a dealership.

Helping the Challenge X team keep their vehicle light, the students integrated aluminum brake rotors developed at Michigan Tech. The rotors had not yet been integrated into a daily-use vehicle, he said.

One goal of the competition is to achieve stock vehicle weight. At 3,882 pounds, Tech's car is only about 20 pounds heavier than a standard Equinox, which weighs 3,860 pounds.

Tech's vehicle is much lighter than all other vehicles produced by Challenge X teams, Mr. Cimermancic said. Its closest competitor weighs about 4,000 pounds.

On the trip around Lake Michigan, Messrs. Cimermancic and Bland have visited the homes of other members of their Challenge X team, who have traveled part of the way with them.

In St. Ignace, they arrived with electrical engineering student Andrew Best, a junior, and Mindy Saxton, a freshman in mechanical engineering. They were followed by a truck with students who could help them if something went wrong.

Along the trip, the team has visited high schools to give presentations on their work. The lectures are designed to show younger students how much they can achieve when they apply themselves. Many high school students react with amazement when they discover that students only a few years older than themselves had designed the car, Mr. Cimermancic said. Several noted that they had not learned to change their car's oil yet.

At their lectures, the university students have explained that they wrote the computer code that makes the speedometer work and that they are responsible for ensuring that the gages report accurate information.

Owing to a mistake by the company that produced it, the electric motor failed on the trip around Lake Michigan. Metal shavings were left in a drain plug that the company drilled to remove fluid from the gear box, Mr. Cimermancic said, but it is not a problem that will be repeated on the trip to the White House.

In the competition, a major failure cannot happen on the final test, he said. The car must make the 500- mile trip with no more than minor failures that can be repaired en route, like blown fuses or faulty switches.

Next year, a new Challenge X competition will involve an "ecocar" with even more stringent demands for fuel efficiency, team members said, and Michigan Tech is writing a proposal to prepare for it now.