Emissions Testing Event Provides Important Data

The Emissions Testing Event (ETE) was a success!

We were one of the first teams to pass Safety Tech inspection out of the six teams that were at the event. The inspectors were impressed with the work we had done, but were still critical and gave us feedback on areas of improvement. 

With the help of a General Motors technician, we solved two of our biggest issues—starting our engine and fixing our brakes. The engine control module was faulting because we had modified some of the signals (e.g., the 12-volt starter) in order to take control of it. 

Mary testing on the chassis dynamometer.

Before last week, the brakes would hold pressure while driving and it was causing a lot of issues with energy consumption and drivability. We learned that the car had originally been equipped with a hill-start assist feature, which had been compromised when we modified components from the stock vehicle. 

With a running engine, the only thing standing between us and series mode is a fully operational P2 generator motor. Series mode means our engine will be running and use our P2 as a large alternator that will help to recharge our batteries while driving. There are some issues with the interference on our CAN (controller area network) bus that we are trying to work out before we can use the P2 to generate electricity. 

With the help of a Transportation Research Center technician, we were also able to test Mary on a chassis dynamometer (pictured above). We tested the electric vehicle (EV) mode on our vehicle with a few different control strategies and collected some engine starts emissions data. We will be able to use this data to validate our models and have an expectation of how we will perform at competition in June. 

A big thank you to all of the sponsors GM, TRC, Argonne National Labs and the U.S. Department of Energy who were able to help us out at ETE! 

Keep up with our Facebook and Twitter updates, and we’ll be sure to let you know when we’re running in series mode.