Clemson Students Designing Hybrid Rallycross Vehicle

Automotive engineering students work on the Deep Orange 9 rallycross vehicle. Image Credit: CU-ICAR

When it comes to vehicles, you often are choosing between performance or safety and fuel efficiency. Rarely do you find something with a mix of the two. Students at Clemson’s International Center for Automotive Research (ICAR) are hoping to create a vehicle for global rallycross that successfully meshes the two.

The Deep Orange 9 program, sponsored by Honda R&D Americas, is designing a new fuel-efficient, high-performance vehicle. While those two might seem conflicting, rallycross could be the perfect testing ground to break barriers.

Rallycross is run on a closed track of dirt, asphalt and mud. The modified road cars are known to be able to accelerate quickly — some reaching 60 miles per hour in less than two seconds.

Rallycross includes tight turns at high speeds which creates the need for better handling, but also greater driver safety. Deep Orange 9 students are charged with creating the “best of both worlds” vehicle.

“The extreme engineering behind motorsports has often been used as a test bed that pushes the boundaries of consumer vehicle technology,” explained Kulwicki Endowed Professor in Motor Sports Engineering at CU-ICAR, Robert Prucka, in a statement. “Deep Orange 9 students are tasked not only with developing an innovative vehicle with the power and handling requirements of an emerging motorsport, but with finding new ways to improve driver safety, fuel efficiency and vehicle emissions in these highly dynamic driving situations.”