Education in technological and engineering literacy has never been more necessary for students to face future challenges. This trend drives the college to equip students with a broad conceptual understanding of technology and its place in society, transforming them into technological and engineering literate, who are expected as active participants in the technological world, careful creators and users of technology, to meet the requirements of the future employment market. The present paper studied the effectiveness and effect of delivering technological and engineering literacy to students by participating in the ‘SOPHIE’ project – a tertiary engineering students project in which multi-disciplinary students from different backgrounds, work as a team to design, engineer, and build solar-powered electric vehicles to take part in the world’s biggest and most prestigious solar car competition, The Bridgestone World Solar Challenge (WSC). With the era of Education 4.0, students involved in the project practise their organizational, collaborative, and project management skills through the hands-on real-world experience of creating a solar car among energy, automotive, engineering, material sciences, and IT sectors.

This research examined, analysed and evaluated the indirect measurement data collected from the Evaluation of Student’s Performance (ESP), and the Survey of Employer’s Views on the graduated student participants (API) conducted by the ‘SOPHIE’ project mentors. It also revealed that the technological and engineering literacy of the students, who participated in the ‘SOPHIE’ solar car project, was significantly enhanced in terms of knowledge and techniques application, problem identification and solving, time and quality commitment, communication and collaboration, self-directed continuing professional development, and professional and ethical responsibilities. Students’ participation in the SOPHIE solar car project enables them to practice technological and engineering literacy; this experience aided them to adapt well to the workplace in the future and to apply their engineering knowledge, techniques, and skills to develop future technologies.