Will Tennessee zoom past No. 1 Texas? These Vols competing in auto innovation have already hit the gas

All things that have been top of mind in Knoxville this week. And not just for the University of Tennessee football team.

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KNOXVILLE - Tennessee Volunteers defensive lineman Jordan Norman (33) and Tennessee Volunteers defensive lineman Ethan Utley (17) celebrate a stop during the college football game between the Tennessee Volunteers and the Kennesaw State Owls on September 19, 2026, at Neyland Stadium. ((Photo by Bryan Lynn/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images))

As the No. 14 Volunteers prepared for Saturday’s tilt against No. 1 Texas in Knoxville, another group of Tennessee students were putting on their game faces for the challenge of their young lives.

"We’re at the very beginning stages," Tennessee Ph.D. student Tyson Beach said. "Right now, it’s just this big bowl of potential. We are forming ideas, but we are driven, we are working and we want to win. That’s just it. Plain and simple."

Beach and his more than 100 teammates from Tennessee’s Tickle College of Engineering were selected to compete in the 2026 EcoCAR Innovation Challenge against 19 other universities from across North America.

Members of Tennessee's EcoCAR Challenge team are about to start a four-year challenge to enhance a Jeep Grand Cherokee with innovative technology. (University of Tennessee)

The four-year program, administered by the U.S. Department of Energy and Argonne National Laboratory, and sponsored by car manufacturers General Motors and Stellantis, tasks college students with developing innovative and energy-efficient next-generation solutions for the automotive industry, using emerging technologies, artificial intelligence, connected and automated vehicle systems and advanced propulsion.

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The Tennessee students, who will be working on transforming a Jeep Grand Cherokee, as some of the other teams work on a Chevrolet Blazer, were in Atlanta this week at a conference to get their marching orders about how the competition works and what they need to do to win the title in 2030.

"There are about 30 deliverables (to Stellantis, the manufacturer of Jeep) on our dashboard in just this year), which means our students will be working day and night, battling to get this job done," said Pingen Chen, the team’s sponsor and a professor in the mechanical and aerospace engineering department at Tennessee. "It’s a lot of time management, collaborations, teamwork and coming up with ideas. It’s a great collaborative platform."

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Members of Tennessee's EcoCAR Challenge team are about to start a four-year challenge to enhance a Jeep Grand Cherokee with innovative technology. (University of Tennessee)

The Tennessee students already have a game plan in mind. Not only are they tasked by Stellantis to optimize the Grand Cherokee’s off-road capabilities, they are determined to set themselves apart by adding their own creative innovations that will enhance self-driving capabilities on the vehicle.

"We will follow the specific requirements, but then we want to go above and beyond, and I think we can do that by providing something related to autonomy," Tennessee Ph.D. student Skylar Sims said.

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While Sims and his teammates acknowledge that the general public might still be skeptical about self-driving cars, they say they are committed to mainstreaming that feature by developing more consistent technology.

"You know, when cars first came out, people would say, ‘I don’t trust driving a car. I have a horse, let me ride my horse,’" Sims said with a smile. "When anything new comes out, there’s skepticism. It just takes time to implement and improve and gain people’s trust to make it more safe. I’ve worked over the past two years on autonomous vehicles, so I’m excited about that."

The Tennessee team is also excited about its potential, and its talent and its versatility. The students believe they have a great chance to win another title, which would bookend a championship by Tennessee in the very first EcoCAR Challenge back in 1988.

Members of Tennessee's EcoCAR Challenge team are about to start a four-year challenge to enhance a Jeep Grand Cherokee with innovative technology. (University of Tennessee)

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"I think we have a deep history (in the competition)," Tennessee Ph.D. student Zakerie Hubbs said. "And we’re a large university with a lot of resources. And we have a passion in the group, especially with autonomous vehicles.

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"There’s pressure to it because it’s a competition, but that adds an exhilaration to it too. We’re really excited to be here, and we think we’re going to have a lot of fun."

Will Tennessee defeat No. 1 Texas today? Will the Vols win the EcoCAR Challenge in 2030? Let me know your predictions: patricia.babcockmcgraw@outkick.com