General Motors (GM), the Department of Energy (DOE) , and other U.S. government and industry leaders have joined together to challenge students from 17 North American universities to apply advanced technologies toward the energy and environmental issues facing the automotive industry through the "Challenge X: Crossover to Sustainable Mobility" competition. This competition departs from previous ones by requiring students to use the same product development process that is used by the industry,

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... hich emphasizes the use of models. Through the words of students and mentors, this paper reports on some key lessons the students learned in the first year of the competition and the extraordinary insights mentors and university teams gained in the process.