Macomb Community College, in partnership with Wayne State University, was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation - Advanced Technical Education (NSF-ATE) for the "Development of a Hybrid Electric Vehicle Learning Environment."

The grant for $298,826 was awarded in August 2005. The original proposal was for a two-year grant. NSF requested we revise the grant to cover a three-year period.

Goal and Objectives

This project aims to develop an industry-based learning environment for HEV automotive service technicians, engineering technologists, and K-12 automotive teachers. According to J.D. Powers, the production of HEVs is expected to grow ten times over the next five years to 500,000 vehicles. There are potentially 19,100 automotive service technicians in Southeast Michigan that will need some education to service HEVs to meet consumer expectations 24. Our main objective stemming from this goal is to address the critical need for training automotive service technicians and educating students in this new and emergent technology of HEV. To enable us to make a positive, continual, and lasting contribution to the HEV education, we have specifically set the following objectives for the project:

• To prepare students and returning technicians to be skilled HEV technicians
• To enable students to acquire industry-based experience in HEV technology through a hands-on laboratory environment
• To expose HEV technology to K-12 teachers, corporate partners, and automotive professionals
• To initiate a pilot program for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) certification in hybrid vehicles
• To prepare Macomb Community College students in Associate of Applied Science (AAS) programs to successfully transfer to Wayne State University's Engineering Technology program to earn a Bachelor of Science and Engineering Technology degree.