Engineering students convert old truck to an electrical vehicle

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Four teams of Rice engineering students converted a 1997 Chevy P30 delivery van into a fully electric vehicle in less than a year, using a combination of parts scavenged from out-of-use vehicles, custom-built elements and off-the-shelf items. Credit: Jeff Fitlow / Rice University

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Four teams of Rice engineering students converted a 1997 Chevy P30 delivery van into a fully electric vehicle in less than a year, using a combination of parts scavenged from out-of-use vehicles, custom-built elements and off-the-shelf items. Credit: Jeff Fitlow / Rice University

Four teams of Rice University engineering students converted a 1997 Chevy P30 delivery van into a fully electric vehicle in less than a year, using a combination of parts scavenged from out-of-use vehicles, custom-built elements and off-the-shelf items.

With over 20 students involved overall, the electric conversion van project, or E-VAN, is a true feat not only in terms of engineering design but also timing and coordination. The students worked on E-VAN as part of their capstone design projects ⎯ an important part of the Rice engineering education that serves as an occasion to get hands-on experience developing and building solutions to concrete engineering challenges.

The project will compete in the annual Harrell and Carolyn Huff engineering design showcase and competition, which will take place 4:30–7 p.m. April 11 at the Ion, Houston. The event, which is open to the public, is an opportunity to experience the creativity and dedication of Rice undergraduate engineering students whose projects developed at the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK) translate classroom knowledge into functional engineering designs with a real-world purpose.

Because the project involved multiple teams working on it simultaneously, students had to navigate a complex timeline accommodating not only the design and execution of custom parts but also supply chain issues and delivery schedules for off-the-shelf parts.

Another significant challenge was integrating all of the aftermarket parts into a single, functioning system and designing around their existing specifications. The project required a lot of coordination between all team members, serving as a crash course in advanced project management.

Powertrain

Rice University Powertrain Development, or team Powertrain, was in charge of the overall mechanics of the van such as steering and wheels as well as systems integration for the van as a whole. Rice engineering seniors Javier Alatore, Juan Vera Garza, Austin Greer, Diego Lopez-Bernal, Gerardo Rivera, Antoine Wiley and Lindsay Wright handled some of the project's major design elements, including issues surrounding the battery and its housing, gearbox, motor and inverter specifications.

Greer, who has prior experience with electrical conversion work, was involved with the project from its earliest stages.

"The 'why' of this project for me is first of all because I like cars, and if somebody says, 'Hey, let's build a car,' I'm going to say 'yes' no matter what it is," Greer said. "But really, this was an opportunity to go all out on a capstone design project."

The van has a maximum range of 100 miles on a highway and about 225 miles in inner-city conditions. Its top speed is about 86 miles an hour.

"That is actually pretty fast," said Wright, who helped coordinate everything powertrain-related. "We're really proud of how the project turned out. It's probably one of the biggest and brightest things we've done at Rice."

For Lopez-Bernal, the opportunity to get hands-on experience working on vehicles was one of the initial appeals of going to Rice.

"My dad actually flips cars for a living, so I've always been around cars, and I've always been interested in taking something that's broken or maybe not in an ideal state and then making it into something more," Lopez-Bernal said. "Especially here in Houston, which is such an important energy hub, getting to work on a project that relates to a lot of the broader conversations on energy was a great opportunity, and it was a lot of fun."

Rivera emphasized the importance of getting to step out of the classroom and build a functional object to serve campus needs.

"It all came full circle, and it's been quite a journey getting to put that knowledge to work on a project that will get to live on and get used daily," Rivera said.

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