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UT selected for the EcoCAR Innovation Challenge
UT is one of twenty North American universities chosen for the DOE's next advanced-vehicle competition. Dr. Qi is one of three faculty advisors, continuing the lab's decade of vehicle-autonomy research.
The University of Tennessee has been selected as one of twenty North American universities for the EcoCAR Innovation Challenge (fall 2026 – spring 2030), the Department of Energy’s flagship advanced-vehicle technology competition, administered by Argonne National Laboratory.
UT will compete on the Stellantis track, working with a hybrid 2026 Jeep Cherokee on electrification and human–machine interaction. Dr. Qi serves as one of three faculty advisors alongside Pingen Chen and Subhadeep Chakraborty of Mechanical, Aerospace & Biomedical Engineering — extending an AICIP vehicle-autonomy lineage that includes the widely used CenterFusion radar–camera fusion work. See the project page.