UW Truck wins top honors (35mpg SUV) [View All]

[Bushfire]

Glendale - The national champion Badgers were in town Wednesday to show off their prize productions: cutting-edge cars and trucks that helped the University of Wisconsin-Madison's engineering students win the Rose Bowl of engineering competitions.

The engineering students, participants in the FutureCar and FutureTruck initiatives sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and Ford Motor Co., compete against students from other schools to improve a car's fuel economy and lower its emissions while still retaining features, such as power and comfort, that customers want.

"Because let's face it, they can make a car that gets 100 miles per gallon but no one's going to buy it," said Nick Woulf, one of the UW students on the Wisconsin FutureTruck team.

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The students displayed a Ford Explorer sport utility vehicle that they rebuilt with an aluminum frame to make it lighter. The Explorer's V-6 gasoline engine was replaced with a 1.8-liter diesel engine coupled with an electric motor. The result: gas mileage of up to 35 mpg, up from 16, Woulf said. The truck won top honors at this year's FutureTruck competition - featuring vehicles rebuilt and enhanced by teams from more than a dozen universities around the country.

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http://www.jsonline.com/bym/news/oct03/175818.asp

Why does it take university students to build a fuel efficient SUV instead of the major US auto builders? That's right, we wouldn't have to start wars in oil producing countries if Detroit could figure it out.