A group of students from the University of Toronto took first place at the Shell Eco-Marathon Americas last weekend, securing the win for Canada for the third year in a row with a car they'd designed to use just 0.0682 litres per 100 km (3,421 mpg US).
The 30th annual Shell Eco-Marathon Americas, held this year in Detroit the weekend of April 11 and 12, pit 113 teams from schools from across North and South America in a contest to see which could come up with the most fuel-efficient vehicle in classes like Prototype Gasoline, Electric and Compressed Natural Gas.
It's been won the past two years by team Al Erion from the Université Laval in Quebec, the runners up this year.
Prashanth Murali, mechanical lead for the U of T Supermileage team, says the contest was close, and that they were in fact ready to admit they'd been beat by Laval when they realized they had an opportunity for a final run.
"We’d already done media interviews about coming in second, and being happy about improving on last year’s performance,” says Murali, when organizers told them they could drag their car to the starting line for one more go.
It was on that run that the Supermileage car, the only car in the contest powered by a custom-built engine, netted a run equivalent to 0.0682 litres per 100 km (3,421 mpg US).
In real-world terms, that's like driving from the foot of Yonge Street in downtown Toronto to Barrie, Ontario on five tablespoons of gasoline, explained a U of T press release.
“All of us were a little disappointed by how close we were with Laval—just like last year, either team could have won. So the goal for us is to really set the bar for the field,” says team co-president Mengqi Wang.
In fact, Wang says the University of Toronto team, which has taken part in the contest the past three years, is intent on breaking the world record of 12,665 mpg US (0.018572 L/100 km), set in 2005.
