2,757.1 MPG at Shell Eco-Marathon Americas

[SVOboy]

Photo: Shell This year at the Shell Eco-Marathon Americas, over 40 teams and 500 people competed to go the furthest distance on a set amount of fuel. The competition was created to inspired students to design the most fuel-efficient vehicles in a variety of categories, most notable the prototype category. This year the top prototype vehicle [...] Related posts:

1. Shell Americas Eco-Marathon Sets 2,843 MPG Record
2. Toyota Yaris Diesel Wins World MPG Marathon with 70.49 MPG
3. Super mileage competition nets 7,148 MPG

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[FastPlastic]

And to think US car manufacturers can't hardly push 35MPG's.

[tasdrouille]

Go Laval! I didn't know they were participating in the Eco-Marathon. I gotta take a walk in the mech engineering dept someday and look that vehicle up.

[Frank Lee]

I think the real news is the "Urban Concept" class: Urban Concept Car Comes to Americas in 2009 - United States





433 mpg!

Also: M-112 Eco-Friendly Urban Vehicle | IGreenSpot

[UfoTofU]

What's the discrepancy between these and manufactured vehicles?

[Frank Lee]

Marketing Departments.

[Matt Herring]

How long was the course that they traveled in the competition? To attain that high mpg over a shorter course they must have used one drop of fuel!

[Frank Lee]

I do think they have a problem like some of the rest of us do as in taking a single reading and running with it. And there is the "short fill" aspect of it too. But what else can be done?

If you put a gallon into the "2,768 mpg" car and put it out on the road and drove it til it quit, I doubt it would make it to the 2,768 mile mark.

[Matt Herring]

I guess since all things are equal with the cars on the exact same course it's fair for everyone entered. The "2,768 mpg car" is exactly that...on that course. But, the spirit of the competition seems to breed some great ideas and good competition...better than wasting their skills on college pranks.

[Christ]

I'd think, given the nature of the competition, that they don't "short fill" the tanks.

I'm sure they rather fill them up to begin with, let them go either until they run out, or until they reach a pre-determined distance, and then measure either the distance where they ran out, or the amount left when they reached the end of the "track".

In this way, you eliminate the "short fill" aspect altogether. If you're starting each contestant with, say, 2oz of fuel, and you can accurately measure a weight change down to 1/100 of an OZ, you can probably tare weigh the "tank" (probably, all of which are uniform within x-factor anyway) and then just weigh the amount of fuel after filling and after running. The difference would give the figure for the usage amount, and could be converted into usage/distance figures.

Rest assured, those 2-3000 MPG cars, they'd stall 50 feet from a gas station from empty tanks, but start running again as soon as you got close to the pump... from the fumes wafting in the air.