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EcoCAR 2: Plugging Into the Future is a three-year collegiate design competition challenging student teams to redesign a stock 2013 Chevrolet Malibu as a hybrid to improve its fuel economy and emissions. Mississippi State University, an eight-year veteran of AVTC competitions, has chosen to design a series-parallel plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. During the Year Two phase of the competition, the team has been implementing their design from Year One into the stock vehicle.

EcoCAR 2: Plugging In to the Future (EcoCAR) is North America's premier collegiate automotive engineering competition, challenging students with systems-level advanced powertrain design and integration. The three-year Advanced Vehicle Technology Competition (AVTC) series is organized by Argonne National Laboratory, headline sponsored by the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) and General Motors (GM), and sponsored by more than 28 industry and government leaders. Fifteen university teams from across North America are challenged to reduce the environmental impact of a 2013 Chevrolet Malibu by redesigning the vehicle powertrain without compromising performance, safety, or consumer acceptability. During the three-year program, EcoCAR teams follow a real-world Vehicle Development Process (VDP) modeled after GM's own VDP. The VDP serves as a roadmap for the engineering process of designing, building and refining advanced technology vehicles.

EcoCAR 2: Plugging In to the Future is a three-year design competition co-sponsored by General Motors and the Department of Energy. Mississippi State University has designed a plug-in hybrid powertrain for a 2013 Chevrolet Malibu vehicle platform. This vehicle will be capable of 57 miles all-electric range and utility-factor corrected fuel economy of greater than 80 miles per gallon gasoline equivalent (mpgge). All modifications are designed without sacrificing any of the vehicle's utility or performance. Advanced modeling, simulation, and Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) simulation capabilities are being used for rapid control prototyping and vehicle design to ensure success in the following years of the competition.

A 1200-V, 600-A silicon carbide (SiC) JFET half-bridge module has been developed for drop-in replacement of a 600-V, 600-A IGBT intelligent power module (IPM). Advances in the development of SiC field effect transistors have resulted in reliable high yield devices that can be paralleled and packaged to produce high-voltage and high-current power modules not only competitive with existing IGBT technology but the modules have expanded capabilities. A SiC vertical junction field effect transistor VJFET has been produced with the properties of lower conduction loss, zero tail current, higher thermal conductivity, and higher power density when compared to a similarly rated silicon IGBT or any practical SiC MOSFETs previously reported. Three prototype SiC JFET half-bridge modules with gate drivers have been successfully integrated into a three-phase 30-kW (continuous), 100-kW (intermittent) AC synchronous motor drive designed to control a traction motor in an electric vehicle.