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AVTC’s Impact

Impacts of AVTCs

Learn the impacts of AVTCs and why you should get involved!

The AVTC education and workforce mission begins with Outreach & Communications, where teams extend their reach beyond their universities and into communities nationwide to engage K-12 students and encourage them to pursue careers in STEM.

AVTCs have seeded more than 30,000 graduates into industry, and is a talent pipeline that has shaped the energy and mobility industry for 35+ years. With significant team and university impacts at 111 educational institutions, AVTCs create the ultimate educational experience and real-world training ground for our future automotive leaders.

AVTC Impact on the Workforce

AVTCs provide students with an unparalleled and immersive educational experience and real-world training ground that transforms the traditional classroom into a hub of automotive innovation, and seed the automotive industry with a highly skilled and knowledgeable workforce that will shape future energy-efficient automotive products and achieve our vision for net zero emissions by 2050.

$5k-$10k

On average, AVTC graduates earn $5k-$10k more than their non-EcoCAR peers in their first job after graduation

276

During the 4-year EcoCAR Mobility Challenge alone, 276 employers hired an AVTC graduate

#1

Automotive companies are the #1 employer of AVTC students

Universities Involved

Since the beginning, more than 95 universities across North America and 30,000 students have participated in AVTCs. These universities have spanned from coast to coast and from Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Each year, 1,000 students join forces in AVTCs mission of educating the next generation of automotive engineers and advancing state-of-the-art fuels and vehicle technologies.

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Community & Youth Outreach

Communications and youth outreach play a vital role in AVTCs. AVTCs enable teams to establish relationships within their communities and extend their outreach beyond their university.

The students involved in communications and outreach are from a variety of majors and bring diverse backgrounds into a primarily engineering-focused collegiate team.

AVTCs enable students to develop important public speaking and communication skills, as well as the opportunity to network in their community to improve public awareness about energy-related issues. Most notably, AVTC students help inspire youth in their community to pursue STEM careers and help attract and retain new and diverse students onto their teams.

Youth STEM Education

The AVTC education and workforce mission begins with the implementation of national STEM and community outreach programs to attract underserved youth into STEM careers and build advanced vehicle technology awareness within communities. 

Current AVTC teams are active with K-12 students in their local area by visiting schools, offering educational events on their campus, collaborating with local youth organizations, and more. These dynamic activities expose elementary, middle, and high school students to a project showcasing real world engineering practices. Students also learn about science, engineering, and college majors. 

During the 2023 academic year, EcoCAR EV Challenge and BattChallenge teams hosted 78 events for underserved youth with over 25,000 students engaged. Over the past decade, AVTC teams have hosted 627 unique, hands-on educational youth events with over 72,000 students in attendance. These efforts are essential in inspiring the next generation of engineers and fostering a diverse and skilled future workforce. 

University Student Enrichment and Impact

A key mission of AVTCs is to provide student enrichment and education through both experiential learning and supplemental training. Students gain hands-on, real-world experience in AVTCs as well as access to the following enrichment opportunities.

Model-Based Design Curriculum Project

In 2013, AVTCs launched a new Model-Based Design Curriculum Project that focused on self-paced, online learning modules that teach engineering students and entry-level engineers the basics of model-based design, how to build vehicle component simulation models, and fundamentals of hybrid system control and fault diagnosis. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, and MathWorks, the ‘Model-Based Design for Vehicle Powertrains’ course focuses on basic component modeling/energy flow, battery energy storage systems, and series hybrid supervisory control, as well as IC engines, transmissions, electric machines/power electronics, and parallel hybrid supervisory control.

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Interested in learning more about AVTCs?

Contact us by filling out the form on our contact page!