Alfred State automotive trades professors go through training for the new cutaway car
From Alfred State College,
Alfred State is expanding their Electric Vehicle (EV) and Hybrid vehicle training to prepare Automotive students for what they will see more of in garages. Recently the faculty and staff in the department learned the inner workings of a new cutaway car in preparation to teach their students.
LINK: Teaching New Technology in the Garage
An Appalachian Regional Commission Area Development grant has allowed the department to not only purchase the Toyota Prius cutaway car but to purchase three 2024 EV vehicles, a Ford F150 Lightning, a Subaru Solterra, and a Ford Mach E Mustang.
AVI Instructor Larry Cardell led the instruction with a clear goal. “The goal of the day is to remove the fear of working on hybrid electric vehicles. We use this training aid to teach all facets of hybrid electric vehicles. Hybrid electric vehicles share 100% of components in common. Everything you learn on this applies to every electric or hybrid vehicle on the market today.”
“We can bring the cutaway car into a lab, and everybody can stand around it and see what we’re doing,” commented Automotive Trades Department Chair Brad Smith. “We’re seeing the actual car and it’s going to allow us to do it as a training opportunity for 20 plus students at a time.”
Cardell noted that in 2021 well over a million hybrid electric vehicles hit the market. “It’s not very common for a college to invest this kind of money into hybrid and electric. It’s awesome that Alfred State is doing this to provide their students with the latest and greatest. If students are able to work on them it’s going to put them ahead of the game when it comes to the industry.”
Smith detailed plans to take the cutaway car to show high school students. “We are going to take it to some local BOCES and show the students this is what we do at Alfred state. Hopefully make it to where students want to come learn more about EV and learn about the future.”
“It’s extremely exciting to think that there’s over $200,000 worth of product sitting here right now that we were blessed with to be able to teach. With this we can teach the students to go make six figures because they understand electricity.”
