University of Waterloo only Canadian team to compete in North American Challenge

General Motors of Canada Limited, Hydrogenics Corporation, and Natural Resources Canada have announced their combined support for a team of engineering students from the University of Waterloo in Challenge X. The Waterloo team is the only Canadian school to qualify to enter the North American competition to develop practical and economic clean energy technology for the automotive sector.

The University of Waterloo is one of 17 teams chosen to be a part of the program. Challenge X will launch in the 2004-2005 academic year in the U.S. and Canada as a three-year program. Participants in this program will closely adhere to current real-world automotive design and engineering practices.

Manufactured at CAMI Automotive near Toronto, a Chevrolet Equinox will be delivered to the university teams at the end of the first year of the project, to build upon the models and simulation efforts to bring the designs to life. The powertrains in the first year will be installed into vehicles in the second year, giving the teams a head start on the vehicle integration process. During the second and third years of Challenge X, the educational emphasis will be placed on validating the modeling and simulation tools in order to refine and improve these vehicles.

The U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors are the headline sponsors of Challenge X, providing major funding, mentoring and product donations. Argonne National Laboratory, a Department of Energy Research and Development facility, will provide competition management, team evaluation and technical and logistical support.