Cal Poly won the grand prize in 2007 at the inaugural Marathon in the Americas with 1902.7 mpg. Photo by Kate McIntyre- Mustang Daily

Cal Poly’s Supermileage Vehicle Team is entering two cars in this year’s Shell Eco-Marathon Americas. Each of the 15 team members is under pressure to finish the cars by March, when they hope to reclaim the grand prize in the competition. More than 500 students from North and South America will compete to see whose car is the most fuel-efficient and produces the fewest emissions.

The difference between the Supermileage Vehicle Team and other car clubs on campus is their focus, said Verent Chan, team manager and mechanical engineering senior.

“Our goal is fuel economy whereas other teams are purely about speed,” he said.

Chan added that they use regular gasoline in the competition, which shows the potential for using fuel more efficiently instead of turning to alternative energy.

“I think a lot of people assume we use solar energy, but we use a combustion engine and normal, unleaded gasoline you can buy at a Shell,” he said.

The team is racing one vehicle in the “futuristic prototype” category and another in the “urban concept” category. This is its first time racing an “urban concept” vehicle, which will be nearly street-legal. The concept for the urban concept vehicle came last December; so far they’ve finished the frame and engine. The car has four wheels and will weigh under 200 pounds.

Gabe Mountjoy, a mechanical engineering sophomore, is working on attaching the rear wheels to the car’s carbon fiber chassis. His and other team members’ projects will contribute to the complete car — but getting all the pieces to work together is the hardest part, Mountjoy said.

“It’s like a large puzzle with many pieces,” he explained.

The Supermileage Vehicle Team is also competing in the “futuristic prototype” category using the same car they raced last year, but with internal modifications. It has three wheels and weighs about 95 pounds.

The Shell Eco-Marathon began in 1939 when Shell Oil Company’s laboratory employees argued about whose car was more fuel-efficient; the winner of that race achieved 50 mpg. Canada’s Laval University team holds the futuristic prototype record with 2,757.1 mpg and a team from Mater Dei High School, Indiana, won the first urban concept race last year with 433.3 mpg.

Cal Poly won the grand prize in 2007 at the inaugural Marathon in the Americas with 1,902.7 mpg, but they set a new team record for fuel efficiency in 2008 with 2,752.3 mpg.

The two drivers this year, Timothy Liu and Michelle Fong, were chosen for their small size and low weight, due to the cars’ compact size.

Lui, a mechanical engineering sophomore, said most of the stress of being a driver comes from managing speed and time. He’ll start the engine and get up to 30 mph, then turn it off and coast until the car is moving at 7 or 8 mph, then begin the process again, he said. This helps the car get the most mileage out of its gas.

Each driver will drive for about 40 minutes at a time, stopping to check the car and fix minor damage.

When Lui joined the team as a freshman he had to learn quickly, he said.

“I didn’t know much of anything through the year but I kept listening and tinkering and eventually it soaked in,” Lui said.

Though he may not end up working in the industry, Lui the experience of how to go about tackling problems like those he encounters with these cars will be there. He added that what the teams learn about making fuel-efficient cars during the Marathon impacts engineers’ mindset about efficiency and performance trade-offs when designing everyday cars.

Like Lui, Anthony Fong, a computer engineering sophomore, didn’t really know a lot about cars before joining the team after meeting them at Open House before coming to Cal Poly.

He said he’s not really that big of a car person, but likes the people on the team, who he said was amazed to learn are very smart and friendly.

“The car is cool but the car doesn’t talk to you,” he said.

Chan said the event is competitive without being cutthroat and the teams are actually friendly, even trading or loaning supplies when needed. The Supermileage Vehicle Team borrowed an electric starter motor from the University of Colorado team when it broke at the marathon last year.

The event has been held in California since its launch in the Americas in 2007, but this year, it will be in Houston, Texas, from March 26-28, 2010. It is the first time the race will occur on a street course.There are Shell Eco-Marathons in Asia and Europe as wll.

The team meets Thursdays during UU Hour in building 13, room 109, and Saturdays at 10 a.m. in the Research Development building. Car enthusiasts and others interested can view the team’s progress on their blog at cpsmv.blogspot.com.

The Cal Poly SuperMileage team continued their success at the Shell Eco-Marathon competition, coming in second place this year.

Cal Poly took a top spot at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana this weekend in a race that tested not speed, but longevity.

 The university earned second place out of 44 participating schools in the 2009 Shell Eco-marathon Americas, an annual competition where student-built vehicles compete to achieve the longest distance using the least amount of fuel.

The College of Engineering Supermileage Team, with its prototype vehicle the Black Widow, got 2,358 miles per gallon. This year’s $5,000 grand prize went to Laval University, of Quebec, who reached 2,757 miles per gallon.

“The guys did great,” mechanical engineering associate professor and team advisor Tom Mase said. “It makes me proud to see how they represented Poly, from the registration of the event to talking with the media. They are incredibly professional and it’s great to see students organize and perform so well in an event as big as this.”

Even though the competition was higher this year with more schools participating in the event, no team was able to meet the record of 2,843 miles per gallon set last year by Mater Dei High School, of Evansville, Ind.

The Shell Eco-marathon is an annual international competition where students design, construct and test vehicles to achieve the highest possible fuel-efficiency. The competition is held globally each year and participants include universities, high schools, amateurs and even motor manufacturers.

It features participants from both North and South America. This year’s roster included 44 teams from 29 universities and six high schools from the United States, Canada, Mexico and Brazil, as well as a guest team from India.

The Prototype competition featured 28 combustion-engine vehicles, five using fuel cell and hydrogen technology, three using liquefied petroleum gas, another three with solar power and two using diesel fuel.

The 2009 Eco-marathon also included for the first time an UrbanConcept category. As opposed to the Prototype category, where vehicles are designed specifically for maximum fuel efficiency and feature streamlined bodies for drag reduction, entries in the UrbanConcept category are designed as more “roadworthy” fuel-efficient vehicles and are closer in appearance to cars.

Grand prize for the UrbanConcept category went to the 2008 Prototype champs, the Mater Dei Supermileage Team, whose vehicle, Street Buggy, won them $5,000 with a mileage of 433 miles per gallon.

Other categories included best prototypes for Fuel Cell/Hydrogen and Solar Power vehicles; a best Eco-Design award, recognizing the team that incorporated recycled and eco-friendly materials into the production of their vehicle; a Safety award for those that best met the safety regulations of the Eco-Marathon; best Technological Innovation, in which Cal Poly earned third place; best Design, rewarding originality and an overall cohesive design; best Communications, for the team that best promoted the competition; and best Team Spirit, this year going to George M. Schurr High School, who actually lent one of their vehicles to another team whose prototype was not able to compete.

This year also included the Perseverance in the Face of Adversity award, which went to Chitkara Institute of Engineering & Technology in India and Louisiana State University, who overcame a death in the team to compete in the marathon. LSU named their vehicle Ellen, after their teammate.

“The Shell Eco-marathon is a platform for students to let their imaginations run wild,” said Mark Singer, global project manager for the Shell Eco-marathon, in a press release. “By encouraging these students to build vehicles with greater energy efficiency, we hope this will help inspire others; and together we can find solutions that will help meet the global energy challenge.”

This was the third consecutive year the Cal Poly Supermileage Team’s participated in the event. In 2007, the Black Widow earned them the grand prize, with 1902 miles per gallon. Last year, the team placed second in the competition, while improving their mileage to 2,752 per gallon.

According to mechanical engineering freshman and Supermileage Team member Gabriel Mountjoy, although they did not reach last year’s mileage, the team was “very pleased.”

“It went extremely well — better than we expected, you could say,” Mountjoy said. “I mean, we placed first for all the American teams.”

Mountjoy said the design of this year’s track contributed to the lower mileage with twice as many turns as last year, forcing the Black Widow to burn more gas while cruising less.

“We burned through twice as much fuel this year,” he added. “But, overall, the race went really well … We’ll definitely be participating next year.”

In addition to competing in the Prototype category, Cal Poly is expected to enter a vehicle into UrbanConcepts for next year’s competition.