University of Michigan College of Engineering solar car beats the odds at the American Solar Car Challenge
ANN ARBOR, Mich.-July 20, 2001--Near the halfway mark of the 2,300-mile American Solar Challenge, the premier race of solar-powered cars in the United States, the University of Michigan College of Engineering's car M-Pulse is jockeying for the lead position.
In a summer awash with talk of volatile gas prices and debates about the harmful effects of greenhouse gases, the winner of this race will be a beacon of energy trends to come. While a lead position in the race would be an impressive achievement for any of the competing teams, the promise of victory is especially poignant for the U-M team, which barely made it to the starting line after overcoming the damage of a devastating crash.
M-Pulse, which was unveiled in Ann Arbor in April 2001, took almost two years to design and build. The car was lauded at the unveiling for its design quality and racing capabilities, and word soon began to spread that M-Pulse would likely be a top contender at the American Solar Challenge. "This is a really impressive car," said Robert Culver, Ford Motor Company's College Relations Contact. "This will be one of the state-of-the-art vehicles in the race."
On June 18, 2001, while practicing along the actual race route near Oklahoma City, M-Pulse tried to avoid a series of potholes that launched the vehicle into a ditch. The driver was totally protected and no one was injured, however, many of the car's sophisticated components, including the state-of-the-art carbon fibre chassis, were severely damaged. "My initial reaction was that they should drop out--there was no way that they were going to be able to race," said Ken Kohrs, one of the team's faculty advisors.
Despite dismal prospects, the team took quick action to get the car up and running. According to Kohrs, a retired Ford vice president who now is the Industry Co-Director of the University of Michigan's Tauber Manufacturing Institute, team members worked 36 hours straight, often sleeping on concrete garage floors when not repairing the car. "They were more like a Formula One team than any other team I've worked with before," concludes Kohrs. Professor Brian Gilchrist, the team's other faculty advisor, concurs: "The team decided to do whatever they had to in order to make the car drivable. It was a tremendous task that required huge amounts of perseverance and effort, as well as incredible attention to detail."
It took the U-M team of more than 20 students 17 days of round-the-clock work to rebuild what had originally been built in a year and a half. "The rebuilding of this car was amazing," said Nader Shwayhat, the team's captain and a U-M engineering graduate student. "It even involved shipping several of the solar panels back to Germany, where the manufacturer worked on them like a surgeon. It was the first time he had done such emergency work."
Now halfway through the race, the car is running well and the team is focused on winning. But the frantic repair schedule has not left the team's performance untouched. The team lost almost an hour of racing earlier this week while fixing a broken LED light and a problem with the car's instrumentation. Although minor, these glitches were problems that the originally planned development schedule might have prevented. Despite the setbacks, the team's spirits remain high. "Ever since the crash, we've been treating each step forward as a small victory," said Shwayhat. "The team has pulled together to keep us in this race. Our expectations for this car are the same as they were before the crash."
With the race almost at the halfway point, M-Pulse has been riding neck and neck with the leader and defending champion, the University of Missouri-Rolla.
More than thirty cars are competing in the race that runs along historic Route 66, beginning in Chicago, Illinois on July 15 and finishing in Claremont, California on July 25. The American Solar Challenge is a biannual event in which participants build and race cars that rely solely on the sun as a fuel source.
About the University of Michigan College of Engineering
The University of Michigan College of Engineering is consistently ranked among the top engineering schools in the world. The College is comprised of 11 academic departments: aerospace engineering; atmospheric, oceanic and space sciences; biomedical engineering; chemical engineering; civil and environmental engineering; electrical engineering and computer science; industrial and operations engineering; materials science and engineering; mechanical engineering; naval architecture and marine engineering; and nuclear engineering and radiological sciences. Each year the college enrolls over 6,000 undergraduate and graduate students and grants about 1,000 undergraduate degrees and 600 masters and doctoral degrees. To learn more, please visit our web site at www.engin.umich.edu.
