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COLUMBUS, Ohio — Eleven universities put some of their greatest engineering students together to compete in the EcoCar Mobility Challenge. Ohio State won the advanced vehicle technology competition in year one and two at the General Motors test grounds in Yuma, Arizona.
Ohio State typically wins the challenge, in the last six years, the Buckeyes have won every competition except for last year.
“It’s just super rigorous testing if our strategy is good. Are our components working? Are we safe? Are we efficient? And are we cool? Is it consumer appeal? Is it fun? Just basically all the things that are driving the industry forward?” said Gage Sovey, a second-year master’s student.
The pandemic has provided new challenges for the team as parts and supplies were hard to come by.
“I would say at the end of year three, we were really at the point where we should be at the beginning of year three,” Sovey said. “I think this really shows how it’s not only the cars that aren’t making it to the dealership that are getting affected. But you know, the really hardcore prototyping design vehicles that are really driving the technology forward.”
The team took a 2019 Chevrolet Blazer and retrofit it to have autonomy, to detect pedestrians and other vehicles, and converted SUV into a hybrid. Intel’s Mobileye and other parts, took longer, because of a lack of microchips available worldwide.
Dr. Tawfiq Musah came from Intel to OSU as an Assistant Professor in Electrical and Computing Engineering. He showed 10TV the microchips, 1.3 mm by 1.4mm, that have caused supply chain issues over the last two years. Musah mentioned how important Intel’s expansion in central Ohio is for the United States.
“The announcement for Intel is that they will be operational in Ohio in 2025. And that kind of gives us a good idea of how long they to take to bring their whole facility online,” Musah said. “So maybe in a year, we’ll start seeing kind of a relaxation of that shortage, that and the fact that now, we are also kind of moving out of the pandemic, and hopefully that trend continues. If that continues, maybe there may be a natural slowness of demand on entertainment kind of electronics, and that will free up room for all these other electronics.”
Consumers are sick of the lingering pandemic-related car supply issues and delays in electronics. Musah said he thinks we could regain some territory if consumers stop relying on laptops, TVs, games consoles and phones for remote work and play, but ramping up fabrication would take too long at its current pace to makeup up the difference. It needs to be a balance until the new Intel plant is up and running.
For the OSU EcoCar team, next year’s challenge brings into play Electric Vehicles, a class reliant upon more semiconductors, and at this rate, possibly more delays.
Year Four of the Advanced Vehicle Technology Competition runs from May 9-20.
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