Third Nationally Half way into a national competition to design the car of the future, a team of UW-Madison students placed third among 12 of the country's top engineering schools. For the past year, UW-Madison's Team Paradigm has been redesigning a Dodge Intrepid with the goal of building a marketable vehicle that can achieve 80 mpg and be ready for mass production by the year 2007.
Students can achieve their goal by any means necessary, so long as the end result is marketable.
Engineering students prepare their FutureCar entry for competition. During the June 17-24 judging period, vehicles were evaluated on acceleration, energy efficiency, design and emissions, as well as consumer acceptance based on criteria such as operational ease, available trunk space and the heating, ventilation and air conditioning. Over the next year, they will continue refining the vehicle for the final competition next June. FutureCar Challenge is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and the United States Council for Automotive Research, a joint research effort of Chrysler, Ford and General Motors.