UT students work on fuel efficient SUV
November 12, 2006
By MELISSA DiPANE
6 News Anchor/Reporter
OAK RIDGE (WATE)—With gas prices rising again, you might be considering a switch to a more affordable kind of fuel. A group of students at UT is perfecting a vehicle that could be right up your alley. On the outside, it looks like any other SUV. But on the inside, it’s a fuel efficient, clean emission work of art.
“We switched the engine from gas six cylinder to a four cylinder diesel engine. We are actually running it on biodiesel,” says UT student Courtney Lindwurm. The Chevy Equinox is part of UT automotive research. Students are working with General Motors in a project called Challenge X, a national competition for engineering students to improve the vehicle by decreasing total energy consumption and emissions while maintaining vehicle performance. It’s a three year program. Seventeen teams from across the country, including UT, are working with the program. “This project taught me a lot about machinery and how you have to take something with problems fix them and go through it. It doesn’t always work the first time,” Lindwurm says.
On Sunday, the team captains took their project to an autocross in Oak Ridge. Lindwurm says it’s the best way to work out the kinks before the project is completed. “We can see what’s wrong and make it the best it can be.” UT’s car will go up against 17 others next summer. The competition will be judged by General Motors. Besides getting a lot of research from the students, General Motors sometimes hires the most talented students.
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