In early April this year, the US city of Houston held an exhibition Shell Eco-Marathon 2013. The main theme of the event was fuel economy in the XXI century. More than 120 teams representing different countries of the world demonstrated their innovative unusual projects. It should be noted that the majority of participants are students. The exhibition showed a lot of interesting ideas, but the greatest attention was focused on the development of students at the University of Laval, in the Canadian state of Quebec. The fact is that they have created a vehicle that can proudly wear the title "the most economical car in the world".
The team took part in the competition for the sixth time in a row, and the last development took two years. It is impossible not to underline the great progress that Canadian students have achieved during this time, because from the conceptual version the car has turned into a real vehicle. Numerous tests carried out confirmed that, as of today, this is indeed the most economical car. The creation of young people called Alerion Supermileage. The car is made in the form of a drop. This, in turn, makes its aerodynamic performance very close to the ideal. As for fuel consumption novelty, its consumption per 100 km is only 0.0654 liters.
Judging by the words of one of the representatives of the team, the original work on the project was something more than ordinary entertainment. Among other things, students received all the necessary credits for their development. After that, they faced a dilemma: stop creating an economical car or, on the contrary, develop your idea further. Since most of the participants were set for further work, the guys did not stop at their achievement and continued to improve Alerion Supermileage.
Now a little about the design itself. The most economical car in the world is powered by a 3.5-horsepower motor, borrowed from a conventional lawnmower. However, in the future, students are going to finalize this node, using a more powerful unit. The model is single. Together with this, it's unlikely to get into the car yourself. The driver will require outside assistance, which can be called the main disadvantage of the vehicle. Canadians intend to work on its correction and dream to attract the attention of not only journalists, but also automobile manufacturers. Against the background of the fight against the problem of fuel economy, they have all the prerequisites for this.
During the exhibition, a competition was organized, the purpose of which was to determine the most economical car. The essence of the competition was that the cars had to cover a distance of 9.6 kilometers at a speed of 34 km / h. Next, the jury counted the amount of fuel that was consumed by each participant, and determined the average flow. Not surprisingly, it was Alerion Supermileage that became the winner here. For their development, the Canadian team received $ 2,000. It is an interesting fact that if students refueled their car for all this money, they could overcome the distance of 322 thousand kilometers.