Shell Eco Marathon

You could go around the world with fuel to spare.

The University of Toronto managed to win the ninth Shell Eco-Marathon Americas this weekend with an amazing 3,421 mpg.

The skies threatened rain, but aside from a few fat drops struggling down through the Texas air, the track remained dry through the end of the 2014 Shell Eco-marathon Americas. Given the haphazard way some of the vehicle bodies were held together – a bit of velcro or pieces of tape doing the job door hinges do on normal cars – this was a very good thing. The dry roads also meant that all of the teams were competing on an

At the 2014 Shell Eco-marathon Americas in Houston this past weekend, Canadian teams took the top two spots in the gasoline Prototype category. The winning team, from Université Laval, managed to hit 2,824 miles per gallon (mpg), just a few drops ahead of the second-place team, the University of Toronto, which finished with 2,712 mpg. Last year, the Sebastian Blanco

When you build a car that can go from San Francisco to Seattle on a single gallon of gas with a few drops to spare, you're going to get some attention, even if you're from a high school in Indiana.

An Oil Company Spends Big To Teach Students To Use Less

On a sunny, at times windy weekend in downtown Houston, TX, 131 vehicles competed in the Shell Eco-marathon Americas 2013, racing round and round Discovery Green for two full days. All told, they used like a gallon of gasoline.

Long before the Fiat 500 came to the US to try and capture the public's imagination, a Fiat 600 was cruising in the Shell Mileage Marathons (the precursor to today's Eco-marathons) and setting records by getting over 300 miles per gallon. The little red cutie was on display at the Shell Eco-marathon Americas 2013 in Houston,

Watching the Shell Eco-marathon Americas 2013 is, to be honest, kind of boring. Yes, the vehicles are all interesting and unusual, but they don't go very fast, you only see them on the track for a brief moment (there's no live video feed) and the ones competing against each other aren't even racing at the same time. But this is an efficiency challenge, after all, and one where students can learn by doing. Much of the

The Shell Eco-marathon Americas 2013 kicked off in Houston, TX this morning with a twist on the usual: Ladies and gentlemen, start your fuel-efficient engines. The area around Discovery Green was buzzing with high school and college students, all here with one mission: go as far as possible on as little fuel as possible. Last year, the winning team in the internal combustion category got Sebastian Blanco

Team from Université Laval in Quebec, Canada captured Internal Combustion First Prize

The 2011 Shell Eco-Marathon Americas, a competition that challenges high school and college students to design vehicles that travel using the least amount of energy, has expanded to include a new plug-in electric vehicle category. At next year's event, the fifth of its

When this writer was in high school, taking auto shop involved learning how to replace brakes, swap out clutches and tune carburetors on a TR7 with a screwdriver and a length of garden hose. The world has come a long way in the past thirty years.

For the second year in a row, the student team from Laval University in Quebec, Canada took home the $5,000 top prize in a worst-to-first finish at the Shell Eco-marathon Americas. In case you missed the headline, their winning entry in the "Prototype" category returned 2,487.5 miles per gallon. We find it incredibly thrilling to report mpg ratings that require a comma so we're goin

2009 Shell Eco Marathon winners - Click above for an image gallery

Shell has stated its preference for hydrogen and biofuels in the past. What they haven't gone out of their way to do, though, was to aggravate electric vehicle fans by dismissing their powertrain of choice. Royal Dutch Shell CEO, Jereoen van der Veer, has filled in that little

The all-time highest mpg (equivalent) rating achieved at a Shell eco-marathon is 10,705 miles per gallon. That record was set in 2003 at the European Shell Eco-marathon. The Shell Eco-marathon returns to the United States next month and will see students try to squeeze every last centimeter out of the fuel with ultra-aerodynamic, lightweight body coffins. The event kicks off April 14 at the California Speedway in Fontana, California and will feature student teams from across the Americas. The UC

Last week Ray Holan wrote a feature article for AutoblogGreen about hypermiling. In it, he mentioned the Shell Eco-Marathon in Europe (where teams design cars for maximum fuel efficiency and a 2003 team got the equivalent of 10,705 mpg). There is also a Shell Eco-Marathon in the UK. Well, this extreme sport is not just for Europe any more, because the event is coming back to the Uni

The annual Shell Eco-Marathon is a competition designed to find the entrant whose car achieves the maximum fuel economy after driving 40 minutes and completing seven laps around the track at a minimum of 15 mph. Cars can run on gasoline, diesel, LPG, or hydrogen. This year's UK event was held at the Rockingham Speedway.