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A greener Milwaukee starts with blue and gold

By Matthew Bin Han Ong, Comm '12 | Photos by Brian Krische, Eng '10

Remember those zippy, AA-powered toy trucks and vans you enjoyed ramming into daddy's toes when you were only 3 feet tall? Marquette is working on something similar — with a real steering wheel instead of a remote control.

"This is my baby," remarks senior mechanical engineering student Nicholas Schretter as he steps out of a retired dark blue Ford E-350 familiar to Marquette students.

In its former life, the 15-passenger van was just another LIMO shuttle used by the Department of Public Safety to transport students safely around campus. Now senior design students from the College of Engineering are converting it into a fully functioning, electric-powered vehicle.

First conceived by students, the project has been in the works for three years. The project recently received a $65,000 grant from Wisconsin's Clean Transportation Program to continue development, making the vehicle drivable.

"The goal is to have the van on the road, carrying passengers, by the end of 2011," says Dr. George Corliss, professor of electric and computer engineering and director of the senior design projects. "We want to drive down Wisconsin Avenue in a roadworthy, licensed vehicle."

Upon completion, the electric van would beat its predecessors by 100 miles in a no-emissions race. A gasoline-run van doles out an estimated 1.7 kilograms of carbon dioxide per mile driven, while a standard bus, which can carry triple the passengers, produces only 2.2 kilograms.

In addition to being emissions-free, the electric LIMO's batteries can recharge while the vehicle coasts. This reduces the need to recharge via power plug and prolongs the van's runtime — especially advantageous due to the many stops the van makes.

The electric van is also economical. Depending on gas prices, the university's gasoline-powered LIMO fleet costs about $1,000 per night to run — electric vans would cut expenses in about half.

The 2009-2010 team overcame some daunting difficulties. The students mounted the motor controller with shock-absorbing spacers to minimize stress and built holding racks for the batteries from scratch. They also started adapting the steering mechanism and auxiliary systems to fit the new electrical configuration and dealt with weight and balancing issues due to removal of the heavy internal combustion engine.

"Identifying the problems is a piece of cake," says Brian Krische, a senior electrical and computer engineering student. "It's the effort involved in finding the solutions that makes it really hard to bite."

Next year's student team will use the grant money to buy the batteries and power management equipment necessary to power the vehicle.

Corliss says it is unusual to have a multiyear senior design project. "This was an ambitious project," he says. "It required multiple layers of problem solving, research and trial-and-error, in addition to fundraising, seeking legal counsel and other business-related practices."

Schretter and Krische appreciated the challenge. "Very few undergraduate engineering students in universities nationwide get to work on a project as advanced as this," Krische says.

"If we succeed, Marquette will be the first to put an eco-friendly, fully functioning, electric vehicle into commission," Schretter says. "I'm very honored to be part of a university that leads by example."

See a video of the e-LIMO in action.