WWU X PRIZE Team passes technical inspection, readies for efficiency test Wednesday

After replacing the tires and fixing a few issues related to the electrical charging and converting system, the Western Washington University X PRIZE Team received official notice that it had passed the technical inspection and was cleared to hit the track. On-track events begin today with the urban and city efficiency events.

The efficiency events are held on the two-mile oval. The design of this event, according to the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE website, mimics the type of efficiency testing that occurs in industry/government testing. It consists of a combination of city, urban and highway driving. In order to advance to the next day of efficiency testing, WWU will need to achieve at least 100 miles per gallon in today's events while keeping Viking 45's emissions below 200 grams per mile of carbon dioxide.

Some of the track events gave the WWU X PRIZE Team fits during the knockout round because Viking 45's electrical system kept shutting down to prevent it from overheating, forcing the driver to engage the less-efficient gasoline engine, said team member Jonathan Bremer.

"We're from Washington; we're not expecting 100-degree temperatures with 95-percent humidity," he said.

After the knockout round, during which Western achieved roughly 92 miles per gallon before penalties were assessed, the team made a few changes to the cooling system to ensure better performance this time around.

"Our cooling system has been beefed up," Bremer said. "We changed the fan out, we changed some ducting around, so we'll be able to cool the electric motor and hopefully be able to completely drain our (battery) packs. We weren't able to run on full electric, which is where we get our gas milieage from. If all goes to plan, we'll be able to run our electric system dry and then only use a little bit of gasoline, which should put our numbers well above 100 miles per gallon."

If Western is able to do that today, it will move on to the final efficiency event on Thursday and then on to the dynamic safety events.

"It's exciting to think that we're a real competitor in this competition," Bremer said, "and I really believe we are."