Students from Virginia Tech University took top honors when they were named the overall winners of EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge [1] after designing and building an exceptional extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) using E85 (ethanol). Taking second place, also with an E85 EREV was The Ohio State University . The University of Waterloo took third place with a hydrogen fuel cell plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. Virginia Tech competed against 15 other universities to take home the top prize of the three-year competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors (GM).