Though the college was started in 1962, the discipline of Automobile Engineering was added in the year 1980 with the approval from the Govt. of India. Since then the Department has been doing service to the Automobile Engineering community, by providing necessary training and instruction to enable the young engineers to participate in the development of national economy, particularly in transport sector.

This course was first started in Karnataka under University of Mysore (UOM). Now it is an Autonomous institution affiliated to Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), Belgaum.

The department is well equipped with laboratories, class rooms, computing facilities and independent library. The department has nine teaching staff members and seventeen supporting technical staff.

The programme focuses on training undergraduate students in the field of Automobile Engineering The Department has been recognized as a research center and qualified students can register for M.Sc. (Engg.) by Research and Ph. D programmes. They will be governed by the regulations prescribed by the Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), Belgaum from time to time. At present five students are doing Ph.D The following are a few areas of interest in which the specializations are available for carrying out research in the department.