Supermileage Team from Mater Dei High School, Indiana takes 1st Place in Shell Eco-Marathon Competition with 2,843 MPG!

A high school team from Evansville, Indiana has taken top honors in this years 2008 Shell Eco-marathon Americas.  Students from Mater Dei High School wracked up an impressive 2,843.4 mpg with their "6th Gen." racer – winning the $10,000 grand prize in the Combustion Engine competition.  Penn State – University Park took first in the Fuel Cell/Hydrogen category (1,668.3 mpg) and the Purdue Solar Racing team from West Lafayette took first in the solar category with 2,861.8mpg.

A PDF with the final results for all categories can be found here.  Video of the participants follows…

Suddenly a Prius doesn’t sound so special anymore.  This brings to light something that all of us have known for quite some time…we’re not doing squat when it comes to engineering efficient cars!  I just have to scratch my head when I see Honda or Toyota rolling another hybrid out and the sales guys jumping up and down about "how much horsepower this baby’s got".  When you look at the gas mileage, it’s usually at or below the non-hybrid version of the same car!  Come on guys, let’s get with it and start using this technology to create useful and EFFICIENT cars…not sports cars.  With some 90+ percent of our time behind the wheel being spent getting to and from work, it’s efficiency we need.

I’m waiting with baited breath {does baited breath smell kinda fishy? } for the PHEV’s (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles) to start coming out so I can get one to do my morning commute.  If everything works out as I expect it will, I’ll use about a tank of gas a MONTH as I should be able to run on battery power 90% of the time.  The gas engine should only kick on when I head out on the highway.

Come on auto industry…you can do it!

Doug White