The energy efficiency festival, called Shell Eco-marathon, has been organised by Shell for over 30 years. The 2018 Asia-Pacific edition was held at the Changi Exhibition Centre in Singapore and this year’s edition saw 120 teams from engineering and technology institutes from 18 countries, including 9 Indian teams.
Norman Koch, general manager, Shell Eco-marathon, said, “the Shell Eco-marathon is not about speed, it’s about fuel efficiency. So, we invite the brightest and smartest future scientists and engineers to come here and design, build and test drive a vehicle that could go the furthest distance using the least amount of energy.”
The teams of students showed off their energy efficient prototypes which fit into two categories – prototype and urban concept. There are three sub-categories, namely internal combustion engine, battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell. Team Panvidhya1 from Panvidhya Technological College, Thailand, which took part in the ‘internal combustion’ engine sub-category, achieved an efficiency of 2,341.1kpl, to beat the old record. Last year’s record of 2,289kpl was set by a team from Guangzhou College of South China University of Technology, China.
In the main Prototype category, Team Huaqi-EV, China, in ‘battery electric’ and Team TP ECO FLASH, Singapore, in ‘hydrogen fuel cell’, which achieved 511km/kWh and 404.3km/m3, respectively. In the Urban Concept category, ITS Team 2 from Indonesia won in ‘internal combustion’ by achieving 314.5kpl, Team LH-EST from Vietnam won in ‘battery electric’ by achieving 129.3km/kWh, and Team NTU Singapore 3D-Printed Car from Singapore came out victorious in ‘hydrogen fuel cell’ by achieving 46km/m3.
Team 520 DTU Supermileage from Delhi Technical University bagged an award for their communications strategy.