A well to wheels approach to the development of automotive curricula in applied engineering programs

In the development of curricula for applied engineering programs it is important to take a systems viewpoint of technologies so that realistic comparisons can be made. For example, in the development of automotive curricula, the concept of a zero emissions vehicle can be very misleading, since pollution and GHG can be produced throughout the entire system, from the well to the wheels. Furthermore, the risk for the automotive industry in the development of gasoline and diesel hybrid technologies is small in comparison to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles since the existing infrastructure and technologies are already in place. Consequently, in an applied automotive engineering program, these topics should be emphasized. At the same time, it is important to continually update studies such as discussed in this paper so that the curriculum may rapidly evolve as technological breakthroughs occur that improve the competitiveness of new technologies.