The Competition
 
The Shell Eco-marathon principles:
 
Challenges students around the world to design, build, and test vehicles that  travel further using less energy.  
 
Is an educational platform that encourages innovation, reinforces conservation and fosters the development of leading technology for greater energy efficiency.  
 
Is a global forum for current and future leaders who are passionate about finding sustainable solutions to the world’s energy challenge.  
 
The Shell Eco-marathon began in 1939 at a Shell research laboratory in the U.S. as a friendly wager between scientists to see who could get the most miles per gallon from their vehicles. In 1977, Shell organised the first competition at Mallory Park, essentially for student teams. In 1978 the competition grew further and an open class was introduced.
 
From these humble origins, the organized competition for fuel economy evolved and moved to Europe. The Shell Eco-marathon in its current form began in 1985 in France, attracting thousands of young engineers and scientists from 20 European countries and the record was 3680 km on a litre of fuel. Today, the recent records are equivalent to driving from Paris to Beijing with less than 4 litres of gasoline, and fuel consumption records are broken each time quicker.

The principle of the Shell Eco-marathon is simple: to design and build a vehicle that uses the least amount of fuel to travel the farthest distance. At all events, teams can enter futuristic prototypes: streamlined vehicles where the only design consideration is reducing drag and maximizing efficiency. In Europe, there is also the category of more realistic “UrbanConcept” vehicles, designed to meet the needs of today’s drivers. Conventional fuels such as diesel, petrol/gasoline and liquid petroleum gas, as well as alternatives like
GTL, solar, ethanol, hydrogen and biofuels can power the vehicles. As long as teams adhere to safety rules, the design of their vehicles is limited only by their imagination and, of course, some competitions rules concerning to safety
factors in the most of cases. We can see some of them as follows:
 
 
Average speed per lap: 30km/h
Mobile aerodynamic appendages are forbidden
No sharp external appendages.
Maximum height  £ 1m and less than 1.25 times the Track
Track ³ 0.5m
Maximum width £ 1.3m
Maximum length £ 3.5m
Maximum weight £ 160 kg
Roll bar must support 70 kg without deformation.