They chatter, they creak or you do not hear anything: Every year, the Shell Eco Marathon teams up against just about 200 teams of students from different colleges around the world. The most important? What comes out of their self-made boxes at the end of the 40-minute race. Because the vehicle with the lowest fuel or electricity consumption wins. The winners of last year have demonstrated it: With only one liter of gasoline, she would have come more than 2.300 miles. Record-breaking. For over 30 years, Shell has hosted the Eco Marathon in Europe, Asia and the US. At the same time, new technologies should help shape the mobility of the future. Whether hydrogen, electromobility, solar or the usual internal combustion engine: The most diverse forms of energy are being tried out, improved and tested against each other in the competition for the ultimate in fuel efficiency.
One of the teams comes from the Philippines, whose motives for participating in the Eco Marathon in London are climate change. The island nation already feels it very much today and the team has set itself the task of doing something in this way. "We have to adapt our lifestyle, if we want to change something," said one of the team members. For their participation, they have chosen the most widely used fuel: gasoline, to make it even more efficient and economical, so that everyone has something of it, especially the environment.
Shell supports such ideas and, of course, is very interested in what mobility and related consumption will look like in the future. Whether it's a clean combustion engine with CO2-neutral fuel, green hydrogen with a fuel cell, or green electricity in a battery-powered electric engine, any form of propulsion that is the best solution, both economical and environmental, to reduce emissions is of great interest to the oil giant. With their Start-Up Initiative they support new ideas and concepts for the development of new technologies for, for example, the generation of energy via a new type of ground asphalt, which generates energy through the weight of the vehicles. Or the energy production through coffee grounds. There are many ideas that the company supports in order to have been significantly involved in the mobility solution in major cities for 50 years.
The Eco Marathon forms the basis for this and is particularly interesting for children and adolescents, who are playfully introduced to the subject. Many of the approaching teams build, glue and tinker with their vehicles themselves. In the urban concept category, self-built vehicles must even be roadworthy, even if they will never get an approval, but already the next generation of young car makers will be involved with the right spirit for an emission-free future. The latest records at the last Eco Marathon show it already: One of the teams has made it. With their designed vehicle, they would theoretically have come over 2.500 kilometers, with only one liter of gasoline. Also from the electrical sector has set a new record: With only one kilowatt hour, they could have driven up to 750 miles. A true bright spot on behalf of future mobility and the environment.
Habby also visited a team!
The visit to the “Hydro2Motion” team was a little confusing! Lots of young people, students, but I didn't hear any beer bottles on the tables or party music. Instead, the students voluntarily, yes, voluntarily, went to the rooms provided by the Technical University of Munich early in the morning and prepared themselves. Clever young people... but what can you say, I brought you a video from my visit to Munich!