You can visit the official EcoCAR Challenge homepage here.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced a Notice of Program Interest for North American colleges and universities with accredited engineering programs to compete for the opportunity to participate in EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge — a new international collegiate vehicle engineering competition — through a Request for Proposal (RFP) process.

EcoCAR seeks to advance the level of vehicle technology capable of reducing petroleum consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while demonstrating the real-world performance of a range of technology options.

The EcoCAR Challenge is a three-year competition that builds on the 19-year history of DOE advanced vehicle technology competitions by giving engineering students the chance to design and build advanced vehicles that demonstrate leading-edge automotive technologies, with the goal of minimizing the environmental impact of personal transportation and illustrating pathways to a sustainable transportation future. DOE has again joined General Motors (GM), the Government of Canada (Transport Canada, Natural Resources Canada), and other sponsors for this new competition series, named the EcoCAR Challenge. Argonne National Laboratory, a DOE research and development facility, will organize and operate the EcoCAR Challenge.

Each team will receive a 2009 Saturn Vue donated by GM, as well as support from GM and Argonne National Lab engineers.

2009 Saturn Vue XE

Teams are competing from across the United States and Canada, including:
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Georgia Tech
Howard University
Michigan Tech
Mississippi State University
Missouri University of Science and Technology
North Carolina State University
Ohio State University
Pennsylvania State University
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Texas Tech University
University of Ontario Institute of Technology
University of Victoria
University of Waterloo
Virginia Tech
West Virginia University