Blistering speed of...

[Grant-53]

These vehicles are engineering training exercises and are not directly suitable for mixed vehicle traffic. They are too low and slow. A trike needs to have a seat height of at least 20" to run in traffic. That said, their value is in developing concepts and techniques that can be applied to velomobiles. The shape can be adapted for electric and human power. See the thread by "Barely Awake" in the Alternative forum. For motorcycle shells check out the sites for plans of model sailplanes.

[PeterS]

Frank, I'm in Australia. Litres per 100 km is our system, it's something we share with the vast majority of the world . The US seems to be stuck with a perfectly satisfactory if very old fashioned set of weights and measures .

[Frank Lee]

I'm gonna start using Frankunits. It got 379 mpg in Frank gallons. We butcher our language so badly these days; might as well butcher the numbers and units too.

[PeterS]

Think of the flexibility !

[Frank Lee]

I know! And I don't even have to think up a new word for my units of volume; I'll just use "gallons" too, and let everyone guess what the helll I'm talking about.

[PeterS]

Except your gallons will be whatever you say they are . Cunning .

[Frank Lee]

Heh heh. Things aren't complicated enough so let's just throw more wrenches into it.

[low&slow]

Interesting discussion, but for me it points out the limited usefulness of the Shell Fuel Contest style competitons . The other posters are right that these "cars' " can be beaten by a fit bicyclist as far as achieving the speeds and going the actual total distance that these "cars " do in a competition. I wish that Shell and other major sponsors would go to a competition format like The Vetter Fuel Economy Challenge where the competition takes place on public roads at speeds that are safe and usefull and where there is a usefull cargo carrying requirement ( 4 filled paper grocery sacks in the Vetter Challenge). Competitions like the Vetter Challenge would demonstrate stimulate actual developments that would benifit real world motor vehicles rather than just be engineering exercises. my 2 cents worth

[renault_megane_dci]

Very right since those vehicles are probably less comfortable than riding a bicycle too.

There is a Michelin Challenge I believe that is anchored more to real life ...

[Frank Lee]

It would be quite nice for us if the scope of the competition was for street legal vehicles; I'd be on board with that. The fact remains, though, that it is primarily a training exercise for students, and quite a vigorous one at that. I wonder if it's realistic to expect them to construct scratch-built street legal vehicles in a school year's time? Remember, these aren't seasoned veterans at design and fab; a huge part of it is to build the car from scratch and learn to build it from scratch; ya gotta start somewhere. Otherwise they would be looking at modifying existing vehicles... and there are already competitions for that. Keep in mind that nobody is really holding their hand through this process; yes there is a faculty advisor and I suppose there are variations in how "hands on" the advisor is, but mine was mainly there to help answer the team's questions- provide only the necessary guidance- not tell us what to do.