Super Mileage Cars

Reported September 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Cars on the road today are getting better gas mileage than ever, but the future looks even brighter. In one super-mileage car competition, cars from all over the world are breaking fuel economy records.

So you think your hybrid gets good mileage? It's nothing compared to these cars, built by teams of engineering students from around the world. These kids are setting fuel economy world records.

"We expect to do really well, around 1,000 miles per gallon," Malissa Vyce, an engineering student at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Mass., told Ivanhoe.

"We're shooting for about 1,200 miles per gallon," Alexander Michlberger, an engineering student at the University of Akron in Akron, Ohio, said.

That's like going from Washington D.C. to Texas on one gallon of gas! Over 40 teams compete in the annual Society of Automotive Engineers Supermileage Race. The goal is to build a one-person vehicle with the highest miles per gallon.

Teams fine-tune a one-cylinder lawnmower engine to increase the fuel economy, plus add unique design features.

"It's very aerodynamic," Vyce said. "It's streamlined."

"We want the vehicle to be as light as possible," Michlberger said. "We use extensively carbon fiber materials."

Each vehicle’s fuel is weighed before and after each team's track run of six laps. The difference in weight in fuel calculates the vehicle's miles per gallon. The average speed cannot go over 25 miles per hour -- a challenge for some teams to stick to.

"If they didn't have problems coming into the competition, they have problems today, and we want them to be able to work through that, figure out a solution, put the solution in place," Jim Gluys, an engineer at the Eaton Corporation in Cleveland, Ohio, told Ivanhoe.h

In the race, a Canadian team won first place, with more than 1,800 miles per gallon. Teams from Michigan, California and Ohio finished 2nd, 3rd and 4th.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.-USA, contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Nancy Lewis
Corporate Communications Manager
Warrendale, PA 15096-0001
(412) 977-2894
nlewis@sae.org

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
IEEE
Pender McCarter
IEEE http://www.ieee.org
IEEE-USA http://www.ieeeusa.org
p.mccarter@ieee.org

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