The idea for the Shell Eco-marathon competition was born back in 1939 when employees of the oil company in the USA made a friendly bet among themselves about who could travel the longest distance on the same amount of fuel. Now it is an annual competition held in three continents — Asia, America and Europe — encouraging young minds to come up with innovative ways of building energy-efficient vehicles to be put to the test.

The Mileage Challenge in the Asian edition has teams competing to travel the farthest on the least amount of fuel. This year’s winners in the Prototype category was Sakonnakhon Technical College Thailand’s Virgin fitted with an internal combustion engine which ran 2,288.9km/l. Guangzhou College of South China University of Technology’s battery electric HuaQi-EV came second having travelled 474.1km/kWh while Universiti Teknologi Mara Shah Alam, Malaysia’s hydrogen fuel cell UiTM Eco-Sprint was third with 359.4km/kWh.

In the Urban Concept category, Universitas Indonesia’s internal combustion engine Sadewa was the winner, having travelled a distance of 374.9km/l and Lac Hong University, Vietnam’s battery electric LH-EST was second with 107.8km/kWh.

Another competition in the event was the Drivers’ World Championship Asia, introduced to the Eco-marathon programme only last year. It challenges the best Urban Concept teams to combine the proven energy efficiency of their car with the speed and skill of their driver, in a race to see who can cross the finish line first on the least amount of fuel. The top winner here was De La Salle University of the Philippines (Team DSLU Eco Car ICE). Sebelas Maret University of Indonesia (Bengawan Team 2) was the runner-up, with Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, also of Indonesia (ITS Team 2), as the second runner-up. They will now compete with the three winners from America and Europe in the grand finale to be held in London in July. — SH

Published in Dawn, EOS, March 18th, 2018