Wesley Crammer: Hello. I'm Wesley Crammer with KVCR News, right now you might be sitting comfortably in traffic sipping on your coffee, but now imagine something completely different, a car built completely from scratch, not for comfort, but for raw speed. And the engineers are college students running purely on caffeine and ambition, trying to balance exams with the high speed of Formula SAE racing. This is Highlander racing at UC Riverside, with Grayson Young, team president and driver interfaces lead.
Grayson Young:We pretty much design and build a custom race car from scratch. It's a fully electric vehicle. We use the same battery cells as, like a normal Tesla. Tesla actually sponsored our club, and they gave us cells so we can make our custom battery packs.
Wesley Crammer: But this isn't just an experiment in electric mobility, it's a full throttle, high stakes engineering challenge. This car is built for racing, which means it's designed for pure performance and maximizing acceleration, speed and endurance. Unlike your daily commute, instead of dodging potholes, they're trying to shave milliseconds off their lap times.
Grayson Young: We build this car for a race environment, so it's a lot more about acceleration and handling. It's all built around this competition, and to do a figure eight to test your cornering ability, as well as a track which is like one kilometer long, and you go as fast as possible, lots of corners and stuff, so lower time, more points and as well as an endurance side. So the endurance side is the hardest part. So it's 22 kilometers, and you have to make sure your battery lasts the entire length, as well as your car doesn't break down.
Wesley Crammer: Unlike the electric cars we see on the road, this vehicle is built to be light and quick, weighing in at just about 1/8 the weight of a Tesla Model 3 but still managing 110 horsepower. It's designed for high performance, but getting to that level of precision takes years of planning and constant improvement,
Grayson Young: So we usually start right after the competition of the previous year, creating, like, goals of what we want to accomplish with the next year's car. Talk about things that failed in the previous car, things that we can improve pretty easily and quickly, instead of doing, like, a full redo of the car.
Wesley Crammer: The past two years have been a roller coaster of development. In 2023, the team poured hours into getting the car on its wheels, but the electrical side just wasn't there. It was a heartbreaking moment, but still, they pushed on.
Grayson Young: Yeah, that was really sad and heartbreaking. We really tried to get it done at competition, like even working on the car, but we eventually passed mechanical tech inspection, which was the first of any EV car at UCR, which was super awesome.
Wesley Crammer: Every great innovation comes from trial and error. The Wright brothers had eight major crashes. Edison went through about 1000 light bulb filaments. And this team, they've had their fair share of learning experiences. Now, they're refining the details, learning from past mistakes, and integrating new ideas, but behind every bolt and circuit board on the car, there's a specialized team making it all work.
Grayson Young: Each sub team has a specific part on the vehicle that they focus on. For example, the chassis makes the structure of the car, and then the drive train works on our motor, and works on the gear ratios, suspension works on the shocks, making sure that the wheels can travel up and down easily and go over bumps, as well as handling. And then we have a business team that works on handling sponsors, as well as generating funds for the car, because we spend about, like $80 to $100k on this car every year.
Wesley Crammer: And with that cost comes a lot of responsibility. This is not your average college group project. There's no ‘I forgot to do my part’ excuse when you're spending close to six figures on a car. Every mistake costs real money, but that's what makes it a real world experience and a hands-on experience that classrooms just can't provide.
Grayson Young: Even if you go through your classes, you won't be prepared for what we're doing in this club. It's completely new for every single person that joins
Wesley Crammer: For students, this club is more than just a racing team where you get to build a car. It's an opportunity to turn theory into reality, to make real world connections and to stand out to future employers.
Grayson Young: The more time you put in, the more experience you're gonna get, the more likely you're gonna get hired. Some of the more dedicated, like the leads and the officers they put in like 20 to 40 hours every week,
Wesley Crammer: And for the alumni, they’re at pretty much every major tech company, space companies, automotive, you name it. And now all eyes are on the upcoming competition in Michigan and against about 100 other collegiate teams. After years of trial and error, this could be the year that the car finally competes at full capacity.
Grayson Young: I haven't personally seen a car fully work yet. Hopefully this is the year.
Wesley Crammer: For the team. Competition isn't just about winning, it's about learning, about pushing limits, about proving that even after setbacks, you can keep moving forward.
Grayson Young: Even though we have been down in the past, like last year, not getting this car done in time, and for competition, we still continue through and we're making great strides right now, and you just kind of keep pushing through it, and you learn a lot from that. And yeah, it's been a great experience. So…
Wesley Crammer: In the end, this race car is more than just a vehicle. It's a testament to perseverance, to engineering ingenuity, and to teamwork. Just like in life, the road isn't always smooth. There's setbacks, there's obstacles. And there's unexpected detours. With enough dedication, failure isn't the end of the road, it's just another corner to navigate.
Grayson Young: I just want to leave the team in a good spot, culture wise, technology, experience wise, and make sure we have a good set of leaders going forward.
Wesley Crammer: The team is gearing up for their biggest challenge yet, the competition, the months of work, the sleepless nights and the countless hours spent debugging and designing. It all comes down to this. We wish them luck as they prepare for the competition and get to see all their hard work pay off. This was Wesley Crammer with KVCR 91.9 FM Public Radio.