David Freers

Judges check under the VT SUV.

A team of Virginia Tech students won the second round in a competition to produce fuel-efficient vehicles with low emissions.

The Tech team was announced as the winner Thursday evening among a field of teams from 17 universities in North America. Competitors included the University of Michigan, the University of Texas at Austin and Penn State.

The competition, dubbed "Challenge X: Crossover to Sustainable Mobility," is a three-year event sponsored by General Motors and the U.S. Department of Energy.

Tech finished fourth in the first year of the competition -- the design phase. The University of Waterloo won last year's competition.

David Freers

The re-engineered Chevy Equinox at General Motors' Desert Proving Grounds in Mesa, Ariz.

This year's event involved each team applying those designs to a 2005 Chevrolet Equinox, a compact SUV.

Tech's vehicle uses two electric motors in addition to a regular engine and runs on an ethanol/gas blend. It reduced the petroleum use by 74 percent, getting 19.7 miles per gallon of the hybrid fuel.

Steve Boyd, a mechanical engineering graduate student and leader of Tech's 40-person team, said the technology the team used is not much different than what's on the market.

The challenge was integrating the motors and a battery pack into the original vehicle while maintaining its integrity and ease of operation.

The fact that it runs on domestic fuel makes it a practical design, he said.

"I think it represents a very here-and-now kind of solution to what to do about increasing gas prices," he said.

The changes they made could be done by a car manufacturer and only add the standard increase in cost for a hybrid -- about $3,000 or $4,000.

The scoring system was on a 1,000-point scale and included tests for acceleration, towing capacity, comfort, safety as well as fuel efficiency and emissions.

With 901.9 points, Tech edged out the University of Wisconsin at Madison team, which scored 887.7 points in the weeklong competition in Mesa, Ariz.

The organizers kept the standings a mystery until the end of the contest, but Boyd said the team expected to finish in the top three.

"We've had the vehicle running in one form or another since the first week of February," he said. "I think we knew going into it that we would have a reliable vehicle."

In addition to winning lowest emissions and lowest petroleum consumption, the Tech team also won in the category of best-written technical report and best braking and handling.

The team received a $7,000 reward for its finish. It will use that money toward improvements for next year's competition.

In the upcoming year the teams will refine their vehicles for the final round. Boyd said they'll work on things like getting the vehicle to run on only electric motors when stopped in traffic.

Boyd is cautiously optimistic.

"Certainly, we'll have some confidence but the other schools do such a great job," he said.