2,565mpg car wins high efficiency race

thescouselander

greenman7 wrote: »

I think this sums it up;

It illustrates a truth from stories of all the 69 teams that competed in last weekend's Shell Eco-marathon Americas. Put enough young, smart folks together and ask them to focus on making a single vehicle, and the very barriers that have proven too steep for the big auto companies don't seem so insurmountable.

Yes, lets see those same people operate within the constraints of a major car company where they need to take account of practicality, legal requirements, manufacturing costs and volumes, customer expectations, reliability etc etc. The results may not be so impressive then.

Engineering is all about compromise. In this case the teams have optimised economy at the expense of every other attribute usually associated with a vehicle. Good for the race but totally unacceptible for a mass market production vehicle.

If it was easy to make a car that met all the usual requirements and did mega MPG then someone would have done it by now.

skiddlydiddly

Eventually some of the tech will filter through, albeit in diluted form.Just look at how futuristic F1 racear technology finds its way into sports, then everyday cars over the years.

Arg

It looks like one of those enclosed recumbent bikes.

rag31

Thank you for that info - very interesting. My mind was boggling at those mpg stats!! I can't believe it! If someone had asked me to guess what the most mpg you could possibly get if you had the lightest materials, best engineering etc etc I would never have guessed anywhere near those levels, I would have guessed 150-200mpg at a push.

Mankysteve

Arg wrote: »

It looks like one of those enclosed recumbent bikes.

Is it bad I want one?

Print_Screen

Well according to the article in 1939 the record for this event was 41 mpg (UK) and that was probably a great achievement and the car may not have looked like a normal road car of the time.

Quite a few car can easily do this now and cars like the Polo Bluemotion can get 80 mpg and looks like a normal car.

With the invention of ECU and dominance of fuel injection mpg rates have shot up
Given time and demand mpg will go up to the 100s for a normal car.