COLUMBUS -- Ohio State University has joined 14 other top North American universities in the race to create an environmentally friendly sport utility vehicle.

FutureTruck 2000, a four-year competition co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors Corp., challenges each university team to enhance the "greenness" of a Chevrolet Suburban by converting it from gasoline power to an alternative propulsion system.

"A few organizations have tried on paper to redesign the sport utility vehicle to make it more environmentally sound and reduce its greenhouse gas impact," said Giorgio Rizzoni, faculty adviser to Ohio State's FutureTruck team. "But this is the first time that a serious partnership, combining resources and know-how from the public and private sectors, has tackled the real-world obstacles of such a challenge."

Other competing universities include: Concordia University, Cornell University, George Washington University, Georgia Tech, Michigan Technological University, Penn State University, Texas Tech University, University of California-Davis, University of Idaho, University of Maryland, University of Tennessee, University of Wisconsin, Virginia Tech and West Virginia University.

Last fall, General Motors presented each team with $10,000 in seed money to finance its initial work, allowing students to turn their "paper" ideas into "on-the-road" ideas, Rizzoni said. In January, GM delivered to campus one of the first newly redesigned Suburbans to roll off the assembly line.

Ohio State's FutureTruck team has two months to re-engineer the vehicle before competitive evaluation of its progress takes place. All 15 vehicles will head to General Motors' Desert Proving Ground June 8-15 in Mesa, Ariz., for a week of competitive events. Vehicles will be evaluated for safety, greenhouse gas impact, acceleration, handling, exhaust emissions, braking, fuel economy, consumer acceptability, trailer towing capacity, off-road performance and other criteria.

Each university plans to modify the existing powertrain to dramatically increase the fuel economy as measured by the vehicle's total greenhouse gas impact, Rizzoni said.

There is an important catch to this competition, he said.

"Students are allowed to make major modifications to the Suburbans, but they must maintain the comfort, safety and performance that consumers expect in this class of vehicle," he said. "This means FutureTruck teams are not allowed to strip down the vehicles or remove any of the amenities and features that have made SUVs such popular vehicles."

The engineering strategies proposed by the universities take advantage of all types of advanced automotive technologies including hydrogen fuel cells, hybrid powertrains (combining electric motors with internal combustion engines), space-age lightweight materials, advanced electronics and alternative fuels. Even though the basic challenge is the same and each university starts off with the same vehicle, the teams are using a wide variety of engineering approaches to the problem.

Additional support for the competition comes from the National Science Foundation, Natural Resources Canada, the Aluminum Association, Automotive Testing Laboratories and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. General Motors is supplying vehicles, seed money and prize money to universities for this first stage of competition.

Ohio State's sponsors for the competition include GM, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Fiat, EcoStar, Delphi Automotive Systems, Visteon, ETAS Inc., the Transportation Research Center Inc., Pittsburgh Paint and Glass (PPG), Shoemaker Industrial Solutions, SoyOhio and Automotive Testing Laboratories (ATL).

Updated media information on FutureTruck 2000 is available on the Web at http://members.aol.com/futurcar

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