FIRST EVER ELECTRIC BAJA VEHICLE AT NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY

Project Information

Following is the original project description provided by the sponsor: “Northern Arizona University’s (NAU) Mechanical Engineering Department has a student chapter under the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and every year, these students design, build, test and compete in the SAE Baja competitions. After the students have competed, their Baja vehicle is used as educational purposes or scraped for the next year to use. As of the Fall semester of 2019, the Engineering Department has decided to allow a team of Engineering students to use a previous year’s Baja vehicle and convert it into a full electric Baja vehicle. The team is divided into two sub-teams, Mechanical Engineering (ME) students and Electrical Engineering (EE) students. The ME team are focused on bringing the vehicle up to safety standards, repairing parts such as adding functional brakes, steering, front suspension, and designing the rear suspension and a new gear box to set up with an electric motor, along with fabrication to mount the electrical components. The EE team are focused on all electrical components such as the batteries, charging, motor, power electronics and controls. The two teams will combine their resources and knowledge to design a full electric Baja vehicle. The vehicle will be showcased at SAE and NAU events. This is a first-year project and a first step to designing electric vehicles at NAU. The project is advised under the project’s clients, David Willy (ME team) and Dr. Venkata Yaramasu (EE team). The project is financial sponsored by W. L. Gore and more to come in the project’s year.” The project description is updated from the original project description to meet the new regulations and standards from the project’s clients.