South Students Build Hybrid Car for National Competition

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Posted on January 18, 2024

Thomas Becnel

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What started out as a senior design project at the University of South Alabama has revived interest in the Society of Automotive Engineers and revved up plans to build a Formula One-style hybrid vehicle for a prestigious national competition.

The goal is for the South car to compete in an SAE Formula Hybrid Competition on the “Magic Mile” of the New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Nick Long, a graduate student in systems engineering who earned a mechanical engineering degree in December, has worked on the car from the beginning. He welded most of the 9-foot-long chassis that will support an engine, battery, transmission and driver. He hopes the hybrid vehicle becomes a legacy project that encourages student engineers to keep designing and constructing vehicles.

“After COVID, this was our shot at revamping SAE,” Long said. “Our biggest fear was that it would fall apart as soon as everyone graduated, but now we’re up to 20 people out here, so it’s going pretty well.”

David Jay, president of the SAE International group on campus, joined the car program at the beginning of this year. Finding students is no longer a problem. At this point, it’s more important to raise money and recruit sponsors.

“We have the manpower and technology,” Jay said. “It’s just being able to afford everything.”

Hundreds of the top engineering students in North America will gather in New Hampshire May 2-5 for the 17th annual SAE competition sponsored by the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. Cars will be judged on design and construction, along with acceleration and endurance – how far they can travel on a tank of gas and fully charged battery.

An early sponsor, Nudraulix Automation in Mobile helped students buy a used 250-cc engine for $4,500. Then there was chromoly steel for the frame. Now they are shopping for more than $3,500 worth of components to build electrical systems and a battery.

Students recruited Dr. Bhushan Lohar, assistant professor of systems engineering, as an adviser for the Formula Hybrid Competition and SAE chapter.  Before becoming a professor, he worked for General Motors in India and the United States. He also led SAE teams as a student at the Maharashtra Institute of Technology and as an adviser at the University of Texas at Arlington.

“I succeeded in the automobile industry because of this program,” Lohar said. “It’s important for students to actually be putting their hands on cars and working with them. A person needs to have a feeling about cars and trucks and motors and noise. Our students have that kind of enthusiasm.”

More than a decade ago, South engineering students built a red dune buggy for a different SAE competition. It’s usually parked next to their workspace in the Science Laboratory Building.

“It still runs,” Long said. “We pulled the shocks off to use on our vehicle.”

The South car has a name – “Panthera onca” – from the scientific term for jaguar. Thursday afternoons are usually a group work day on the hybrid car. Team members have the engine running and expect to have the vehicle rolling on roads by the end of January.

“This is all student-built,” Long said. “No one besides South students have touched this vehicle. We pride ourselves on that a little bit.”

The body and finish of the car comes last. Racing red would be an obvious color, but students are considering an exterior built with see-through plastic panels.

“We think it’d be pretty cool to have a clear body and show the construction underneath,” Long said. “We built everything, so why not show it off?”

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