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As the rigor of vehicle pollution regulations increase there is an increasing need to come up with unique and innovative ways of reducing the effective emissions of all vehicles. In this paper, we will describe our development of a carbon capture and sequestration system that can be used in-tandem with existing exhaust treatment used in convention vehicles or be used as a full replacement. This system is based on work done by researchers from NASA who were developing a next generation life support system and has been adapted here for use in a convention vehicle with minimal changes to the existing architecture. A prototype of this system was constructed and data will be presented showing the changes observed in the effective vehicle emissions to the atmosphere. This system has the potential to extract a significant portion of tailpipe emissions and convert them into a form that allows for safe, clean disposal without causing any harm to the environment.

EcoCAR 3 is a university based competition with the goal of hybridizing a 2016 Chevrolet Camaro to increase fuel economy, decrease environmental impact, and maintain user acceptability. To achieve this goal, university teams across North America must design, test, and implement automotive systems. The Colorado State University (CSU) team has designed a parallel pretransmission plug in hybrid electric design. This design will add torque from the engine and motor onto a single shaft to drive the vehicle. Since both the torque generating devices are pre-transmission the torque will be multiplied by both the transmission and final drive. To handle the large amount of torque generated by the entire powertrain system the vehicle's rear half-shafts require a more robust design. Taking advantage of this, the CSU team has decided to pursue the use of composites to increase the shaft's robustness while decreasing component weight.