Challenge X Automobile Design Competition.

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Matthew Stevens hopes that his efforts will help motorists save money â€" in about 25 years.

A graduate student in chemical engineering, Mr. Stevens led a team of 40 students from the University of Waterloo to victory in the first stage of the three-year Challenge X automobile-design competition. Waterloo is the sole Canadian team in the three-year competition, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and the General Motors Corporation to encourage student engineers to develop alternative-propulsion systems for cars of the future.

Each team designed enhancements to a Chevrolet Equinox, modifying it to consume less energy, operate on alternative fuels, and pour less pollution into the air. The Waterloo team decided to use hydrogen fuel cells, a technology that may be fully established 25 years from now, says Roydon A. Fraser, professor of mechanical engineering at Waterloo and the team's adviser.

After 400 designs, the team created a vehicle simulator â€" much like a video game â€" and brought it to Michigan, where it was connected via the Internet to their miniature fuel cell back in Canada. As the only team to show their fuel source powering a simulated vehicle, Waterloo got a high score, Mr. Fraser says.

Mr. Stevens says the chance to design a car is "super exciting" for him and his teammates, who never thought they had a shot at winning. "This is more than a dream come true," he says.

With the first year of the competition over, each team will now receive an actual Equinox, then will spend the second year rebuilding the vehicle and the third improving it. It will undoubtedly get harder for Waterloo, Mr. Stevens says, since fuel-cell technology is less certain than other options. But the team's biggest obstacle has nothing to do with engineering and everything to do with managing one's time in Canada.

"We're just finger-crossed hoping that the NHL doesn't come back," Mr. Stevens says.

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