SUMMARY

Georgia Tech has the privilege of competing in EcoCAR 3, a four year competition in which 16 universities are given a stock 2016 Chevrolet Camaro and endeavor to transform it into a hybrid electric sports car. In this thesis, an overview of the first two years of the author’s work on the team as the Engineering Manager, the graduate student overseeing all vehicle engineering work, will be detailed. The competition will be introduced and described before a discussion on vehicle hybridization and electrification and the various ways that manufacturers and competition teams have accomplished such. Next, the design of the Georgia Tech vehicle will be presented with justification given for all major design variables. The vehicle model underlying many of these decisions will then be discussed in detail, showing how the team used Simulink and Engineering Equation Solver to effectively predict vehicle performance, emissions, energy consumption, and cooling needs. Building on this, the controls design process known as model/software/hardware in the loop will be discussed in the context of the Georgia Tech team’s use of these steps. Finally, a progress update just before the halfway mark of the 4 year competition will be given, including photos of the team vehicle in current state of build.