Friday marked a unique spectacle on the EuroSpeedway circuit in Lausitz, Germany, as the Shell sponsored Eco-marathon got under way.
This event wasn’t about rewarding the fastest car – instead it was about rewarding the most fuel efficient with more than 200 teams from 29 countries competing to win the €1,000 top prize in this annual green car rally.
The UK was represented strongly with teams of engineering students from the universities of Coventry, Brunel and Central Lancashire gathering to pit their talents against teams from other countries.
The Central Lancashire team’s car was based around a 30cc petrol engine that had been developed in-house and had been coupled with a bespoke engine management system that keeps fuel consumption low. It is also fitted with the brakes from a mountain bike. The team hoped to conserve fuel by only accelerating for 20 seconds out of every minute in the race, setting a target of 3,000 miles a gallon.
Each prototype was judged on how much fuel it used to complete eight laps of the circuit – a distance of 25km (15.5miles). The cars had to also complete the course in 51 minutes and each team got four attempts.
The existing records are impressive. A hydrogen fuel cell car designed by a Swiss team in 2005 has achieved 3,836km a gallon; while in the conventional petrol and diesel powered car category, a 2004 team from France managed to design a car with a range of 3,410km.
At the start of this year’s race, president of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso said that sustainable transport would be essential in achieving climate goals as it accounts for almost a quarter of all Europe’s CO2 emissions and a third of total energy consumption. It is believed that the Shell Eco-marathon offers a key educational platform to focus the minds of talented youngsters on maximising efficiency.
