Rockville Company Tests Hybrid Model in University of Maryland Wind Tunnel

A Maryland company, Genovation Cars, is in the process of creating a plug-in electric hybrid they are calling the G2.

On Thursday, co-founders Andrew Saul and Steven Rogers came to College Park to test the model of the car in the Glenn L. Martin Wind Tunnel on the campus of the University of Maryland. The model used in the demonstration was created by American Dynamics Flight Systems of Jessup.

The cars are expected to be in production as early as 2015, said Andrew Saul, the CEO of Genovation Cars, and they will cost in the ballpark of $60,000. The company plans to start out in Maryland and stay in the state as long as possible, but it has already received interest from several other states.

Paul Vasilescu, the Technology Development director for American Dynamics Flight Systems, said his company was brought on to optimize the shape of the car to make sure that it both looked good and was efficient.

To do this, they had to rely on a combination of analytical, computational and experimental data, Vasilescu said.

The company mainly focused on reducing the drag of the vehicle. One of the ways they did this was by adding an optimized spoiler.

“That makes it very competitive with most aerodynamic cars on the road,” said Vasilescu, who said they were still able to keep the general shape and design of the Genovation car.

Genovation Cars’ main goal is to make a sustainable vehicle with as many environmentally friendly aspects as possible, including possibly using soybean resin for the composites and recycled plastic bottles for carpeting and floor mats.

“We’ve designed our vehicle to be attractive to consumers who are interested in sustainability,” Saul said. “We’ve designed the car to be as green as possible.”