A team of BYU engineering students developed a carbon-fiber, three-wheeled vehicle that achieved 2,145 miles per gallon at the Shell Eco-marathon. The ultra-lightweight car weighs only 108 pounds and was designed for maximum aerodynamic efficiency. The team utilized ethanol fuel to take advantage of higher compression ratios. While ethanol has lower energy density than gasoline, the engineering trade-off allowed the vehicle to significantly outperform 79 other competing teams in fuel economy.
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The numbers are wild, but it is a controlled track. I wonder how much of this efficiency drops the second you add a real-world payload or a headwind. What was the actual drag coefficient on this thing?
It is a proof of concept for efficiency, not a consumer product. The real takeaway here is the ethanol compression strategy. If that translates to heavier industrial engines, that is where the actual policy win is.
Carbon fiber is great for weight, but the cost to scale that for actual transport is the bottleneck. Still, seeing 2,000 plus mpg shows how much waste exists in standard drivetrain designs.
Basically a carbon fiber pod that fits a small person. Interesting use of ethanol to beat the gasoline teams. It shows that fuel choice and engine tuning matter as much as the aerodynamics.
