KARACHI: Pakistan Navy Engineering College (PNEC-NUST) unveiled its energy-efficient urban concept car Rebolt 2.0, the only car from Karachi to be taking part in the Shell Eco Marathon-Asia in Manila, the Philippines, in March 2016, at their college lab here on Saturday.

The Asian edition of the student innovation competition that challenges students from universities across the world to design, build and race the most energy-efficient cars has teams participating from PNEC-NUST, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology and Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS).

Of the 16-member PNEC-NUST team proudly standing around their car in their lab only 10 would be going to Manila. As for the car, it will be packed up and sent to the event location from here on Jan 4. “But not before we can tune its engine to perfection and run our tests on it to ensure a smooth fuel-efficient run during the competition,” says Ayesha Tariq, the team spokesperson. “We also intend to cover it with truck art to add to it the Pakistani touch.”

Meanwhile, the engineering side of the team are concentrating on the car’s fuel efficiency. “Last year, we entered Rebolt 1.0 which, even though it was cleared for the 12km run, failed after 10 laps on the Manila tracks when its axle chain broke. The new and improved Rebolt 2.0 may have the same urban concept body but it is lighter now. It weighs 200kg only and has a 56km/h mileage, which we are looking to take up to 100km/h,” said Daim Ali, one of the proud team members.

Usually teams entering in the competition take two cars, a prototype and an urban concept car, but PNEC-NUST is only taking an urban concept car this year.

Talha Saleem, the team’s marketing head, said that the car had cost them around Rs600,000. But spokesperson Ayesha said they were one of the three teams that won the countrywide competition held by Shell earlier called ‘Run for your money’ that enabled each of the teams to showcase their concepts to a panel of technical advisers. “The top three teams were rewarded Rs2.25 million in prize money to finance the production of their vehicles in addition to technical guidance that they might need,” she said. “The money eased our burden.”

Team PNEC-NUST first took part in the Shell Eco Marathon in 2009 and has taken part in almost every event ever since. The highest rank achieved by a Pakistani team in third in the gasoline urban concept category in 2015, which was attained by Team Econova from PIEAS.

This year 140 student teams from 18 countries across Asia, Australia and the Middle East will be taking part in the competition.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2015