After three challenging days of competition on the streets of Rotterdam, Shell Eco-marathon Europe 2013 has drawn to a close with winners from nine countries scooping the prizes. Shell Eco-marathon is one of the world’s most challenging student innovation competitions and takes place annually in Europe, America and Asia. The competition brings together current and future leaders, along with a broader public passionate about energy issues. It encourages debate around sustainable solutions to the challenge of rising global energy demand.
From May 15-19 in total 183 student teams from 24 countries competed under difficult circumstances on the challenging street circuit with cars they designed and built themselves on the challenging street circuit and amazed everyone by setting five new records. Results are measured on who can drive the furthest on the equivalent of 1 kWh or 1 litre of fuel.
In the UrbanConcept category, team Polytech Nantes from France achieved a new record with 145.7 km per kWh in the battery electric fuel class (an improvement of 41.7 km per kWh from last year); while German team Schluchtspecht from University of Applied Sciences Offenburg improved on a record with 315.4 km/l.
In the Prototype category, the SCS Pasquet from France smashed the previous record for battery-electric with a result of 1,224.1 km/kWh. Favourite Team Microjoule-La Joliverie once again came out on top in the Prototype petrol category achieving 2,980.3 km/l equivalent, enough to drive from Rotterdam to Athens on a single litre of fuel.
This year’s highlights include record visitor numbers to the Shell Energy Lab – a spectacular experience for people of all ages showcasing the future of energy, technology and mobility.
Peter Voser, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, said: “It’s always inspiring to see the leaders and engineers of the future put their bright and creative ideas into action. This year’s Shell Eco-marathon again showcased new innovations and promising creative technologies. We are looking back at a successful event which attracted over 50,000 visitors and 3,000 students from the Netherlands and beyond to support the teams and visit Shell Energy Lab. I found it encouraging to see so many people enjoying the attractions around innovation and the future of energy.”
The results have set an incredible precedent for next year’s event. Norman Koch, Technical Director Shell Eco-marathon, said: “The competitiveness at Shell Eco-marathon this year was never higher. Many teams showed significant improvements on previous years, leading to closer competition overall and photo finishes in many categories. This illustrates how innovation is being put into practice successfully by many more teams.”
For more information about Shell Eco-marathon Europe please visit www.shell.com/ecomarathon/europe
