On Nov. 17, members of MSU’s EcoCAR 3 team trickled into the CAVS building for their meeting. The agenda; discus control systems and frame designs, eat pizza, and also a photo op. with a giant $20,000 dollar check from General Motors. 
EcoCAR 3 is a series of competitions put on by the U.S. Department of Energy in partnership with GM. The competitions span several years, with EcoCAR one and two taking place over the course of three years respectively.  
The objective of the competition is to convert a conventional modern car into a hyper efficient hybrid vehicle. 
2014 marked the start of EcoCAR 3, which differs from the previous competitions
“EcoCAR one and two were three year competitions,” communications manager for MSU’s EcoCAR team Casey McGee said. “How this works is, we are in year one, and we are going to be working on a Chevrolet Camaro. We won’t actually get the car until next December.”
What they will be doing in the meantime is planning. EcoCAR 3 is part of the DOE’s Advanced Vehicle Technology Competition series, and part of the competition this time is to not only drastically reduce greenhouse emissions and increase gas mileage, but to do so in a way that does not compromise the Camaro’s expected muscle and performance.
“We want the students to know about the competition because we have been successful in the past,” McGee said.
MSU’s team won first place overall at a 2007 competition, along with 2008, ‘10, and ‘12. Those being accompanied by a myriad of specific awards over the years ranging from Vehicle Design, to Media Relations and Business Programs along with things like the Women in Engineering Award. 
“It’s brought a lot of positive publicity to the university and the team intends to continue to become even more successful with EcoCAR 3,” McGee said. 
Gary Rushton is a GM employee and voluntary liaison to MSU’s EcoCAR team, and has worked with MSU’s teams for years.
Rushton said GM has been involved with the program for about 25 years, though the DOE held competitions a number of years before that. 
For each competition, GM has to bid alongside other companies for the privilege to cosponsor the events. GM sends a liaison to each school participating in the competition all over the nation and donates both the vehicles used and seed money to get the teams going. 
“General Motors is super helpful to us, and we really value the relationship we are able to have with them and Gary,” McGee said. “We really appreciate their involvement. Gary helps us out a lot.”
There are 16 universities overall who are competing, and Rushton said teams that did not participate in EcoCAR 2 get about double the seed money to get their programs rolling. 
GM involves itself in EcoCAR for a variety of reasons, chiefly, to spot and nurture young talent.
“We’ve  hired hundreds of engineers from everywhere over the years from this program,” Rushton said. “Not just college grads, either. We also hire co-ops and interns for summer work.”
Because the competitions span several years, the faces of the teams change. By the time the competition is completely over at the end of year four, many members and senior leaders will have graduated and been replaced. 
Wesley Haney is lead of the mechanical sub team for MSU’s EcoCAR 3 team. He joined the program during EcoCAR 2. Haney, along with Dalton Childers and Ryan Nazaretian, is one of three out of six sub team leads with over a year’s experience with EcoCAR 2. 
Because the minds behind the team constantly change as the competition progresses, Haney said making sure what was learned in EcoCAR 2 is passed on to the younger team members of EcoCAR 3 is of utmost importance considering the new members will soon be leaders themselves. 
“We learn things every time, and that’s really what this is all about,” Haney said.  “It’s a big learning process. We’ve taken all the information we had over those three years, and we are already applying it to this year, and we are preparing the team for year three and four. We have a lot of experience and knowledge going forward.”
EcoCAR 3 will be a year longer because, as Rushton said, the three year time span seemed a little staggering. 
“When it was a three year competition we wanted a running car at the end of year two and that was very difficult,” Rushton said. “There is a lot of work in year one, a lot of analysis, modeling, simulation… a lot of design. Then to take all of that and expect a running vehicle in less than one calendar year was difficult, so we sort of stretched year two into years two and three.”
Rushton said GM and the DOE both would love for a team to uncover some drastic breakthrough in efficiency, but until then the DOE has found a way to put all the data teams produce to good use. 
“So when they [DOE] set the fuel economy guidelines for auto manufacturers for what they expect a vehicle to get, a lot of it is based on EcoCAR modeling and simulation,” Rushton said. “Because the models and simulations say we can get 60 or 100 miles to the gallon if we, say, use this type of architecture, the Department of Energy uses that to say ‘Guess what, automakers?’”
Students interested can join the project at any point, and a background in engineering is not required.
“In our team, there’s about 100 members spanning about 16 different majors,” McGee said, a communication major herself. “We’ve got all these different majors that come together to make an awesome team. Involvement is great no matter what your major is.”
Interested parties can visit ecocar3.org/mississippistateuniversity to learn more about how to join.
“It’s awesome to be involved and really awesome for the university to have us here,” McGee said. “Anyone of all majors are welcome to join the team, we love having all the different perspectives. We are going for first place and we are confident in our team and will strive for the best.”