The defending champion rose to the occasion. Gathered in the team called Microjoule, the BTS students from the school of Joliverie in Nantes won this Thursday the Shell Eco Marathon on the Nogaro racing circuit (Gers). This renowned annual event consists of covering the longest possible distance with only one liter of fuel using a prototype carrying a driver at an average speed of 25 km/h.
The astonishing streamlined machine designed by La Joliverie won ahead Toulouse III-Paul-Sabatier University and 16 other international teams in the “gasoline combustion engine” category by covering no less than 2,507 km ! Impressive autonomy, insufficient however to beat the circuit record (2,634 km) as well as the world record (3,771 km), all already held by Microjoule.
Electricity and hydrogen too
Associated to Polytech Nantes, la Joliverie also won the Shell Eco Marathon in the “hydrogen fuel cell” (Cityjoule project) and “electric motor” (Polyjoule) categories with respective distances of 333 km and 1,033 km. The students have been working since September, every Thursday evening, on the design of their vehicles.
Efforts rewarded since, on May 10 and 11, their teams had already won the EcoGreen Energy Challenge, a competition that promotes carbon-free mobility. Microjoule had notably achieved a “world first” by traveling 1,345 km with the equivalent of one liter of unleaded 95 on a prototype running on hydrogen with a heat engine.