Virginia Tech Motorsports Electric Vehicle 2027

About Virginia Tech Motorsports

Virginia Tech Motorsports (VTM) is Virginia Tech's official Formula SAE team, designing and competing with formula-style race cars since 1988. Based in the Joseph "Joe" F. Ware, Jr. Advanced Engineering Lab in Blacksburg, Virginia, VTM is one of the longest-running student engineering design teams in the country. Our interdisciplinary team brings together students from mechanical, electrical, software, and systems engineering backgrounds, collaborating across subteams to design, build, and compete with both internal combustion and electric race vehicles. Each year we enter our cars at the Formula SAE Michigan competition — one of the most prestigious student motorsport events in the world — where vehicles are evaluated across static events (Design, Cost, Business Plan) and demanding dynamic events including Acceleration, Skidpad, Autocross, and Endurance.

2027 Electric Vehicle

High Voltage Battery Pack

Our 2026 tractive system uses a 12s 9p cell configuration housed in a sheet-metal welded tab-and-slot enclosure with positive-locking module containers, yielding a nominal pack voltage of 302 V. All electrically conductive surfaces are protected with flame-retardant, electrically insulating material in compliance with Formula SAE EV regulations. On top of the modules, we integrate main contactors, a BMS, main fuse, pre-charge circuit, insulation monitoring device (IMD), and a temperature sensor board communicating over CAN and analog interfaces. Looking ahead, we are transitioning to custom 12s 4p 21700 modules (11 in series) for a pack voltage of 554 V — improving efficiency and unlocking the full RPM range of our next-generation motors. We are also evaluating a composite carbon fiber battery container to reduce weight.

Low Voltage Electronics & Custom PCBs

Our team develops all custom PCBs that form the nervous system of the car. Key boards include:

• System on Module (SoM): houses our Microcontroller (STM32H75) and all required peripherals. This allows a modular design that can instantly add CAN Bus capability to other boards.
• Vehicle Control Unit (VCU): Coordinates driver inputs with hundreds of vehicle state variables to execute torque vectoring and traction control strategies. Built on Zephyr RTOS, it serves as the root of our extensible embedded codebase.
• Power Delivery Module (PDM): Monitors 600 W of low-voltage power distribution using Infineon Profet smart high-side switches . Replaces legacy fuses with intelligent current sensing, reporting faults over CAN utilizing the SoM.

• Custom Battery Management System (BMS): Monitors our 554 V tractive system through a hierarchical design: dedicated cell-monitoring boards sample individual cell voltages and temperatures, reporting to a central controller that enforces protection thresholds and communicates pack state over CAN.
• Strain Gauge Board: Measures structural strain using a half-bridge configuration with precision differential amplifiers and a 200 Hz EMI filter.

Software & Telemetry

Alongside firmware, our team operates a Grafana + InfluxDB telemetry stack that streams live vehicle data over a point-to-point radio link during testing and competition, enabling real-time, data-driven performance decisions.

Sponsorship Request - STM32 System-on-Module PCB Fabrication and Assembly

We are requesting PCBWay's sponsorship for the PCB assembly of our custom STM32-based System-on-Module (SoM). This module serves as the computational core shared across multiple boards in our low-voltage electronics suite, including the VCU and PDM. High-quality, reliable PCB assembly is critical for this module — it directly controls vehicle safety systems and real-time performance management. PCBWay's expertise in precision SMT assembly and automotive-grade standards makes this partnership an ideal fit

Why PCBWay

PCBWay's reputation for high-quality fabrication and assembly, fast turnaround, and dedication to supporting student engineering teams aligns perfectly with VTM's needs. As a student-funded team that relies on sponsor partnerships to develop cutting-edge technology, PCBWay's assistance would be invaluable in helping us bring our STM32 SoM from design to a reliable, tested module ready for competition. Our team has the engineering depth to design sophisticated electronics — but professional-grade assembly is essential to ensure the reliability our safety systems demand. PCBWay enables us to achieve that standard.