Challenge vehicle could travel 3,300 miles on gallon of fuel
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The University of Michigan’s Supermileage Team is designing a vehicle that can travel 3,300 miles with a gallon of fuel.
The new student team will compete in its first competition this summer, the SAE International Supermileage Challenge, in Marshall, Michigan. The competition challenges student teams to design and construct a single-person, fuel-efficient vehicle with a small four-stroke engine.
The team’s goal this year is to beat the North American record of 3,169 miles per gallon.
The University of Michigan Supermileage team is a new engineering student project team within the College of Engineering. The team designs, builds, and races a custom ultra-efficient vehicle in the SAE Supermileage Competition - a competition that challenges teams to increase the fuel-efficiency of the internal combustion engine.
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Readers' comments (15)
Dirk Witvrouwen | 4 May 2012 4:44 pm
From the comments I gather that the main purpose is eduction with respect of project management in tech. environment. I'd rather see this happen projects that can be put to immediate use (like on velomobiles).
As for affordable commercial fuel injection systems on small engines. Please invest fresh mind power in out-of-the-box power sources. The fuel injection route is OK if can be put to market on short term. I'd think B&S and the likes would have put it to market allready, if there was economical sence to it.
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lyle shore | 4 May 2012 5:25 pm
Good response from David Coons -
These projects are a great kick start to accumulating knowledge from the ground up. I'm sure that the research you'll need to carry out will provide a great insight into what has gone before and hopefully trigger new ideas for future 'real life' projects.
Best of luck
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David Coons | 5 May 2012 5:27 am
@David Martin: that's exactly correct! The race strategy is actually one of the most critical parts of the competition, and start/stop of the engine is very common.
@Dirk Witvrouwen: What we have done differently with the fuel injection is that we were able to combine all the necessary sensors into one small, simple package. There hasn't been much demand for such a thing because the most popular regions that Honda and other small engine vehicle companies sell to do not focus so much on emissions etc. so there is no need to develop such a thing. Whether this will be successful in the 'real world' or not, we will have to wait and see.
As for better velomobile technology, us fat Americans don't have a high demand for bicycles... ;)
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laura | 7 May 2012 1:36 am
@ken wilks, @david coons, @chris p
to clarify, it is true that the worldwide record is much higher than our target of 3,300 mpg - as it was our first vehicle we set our sights on the North American record at the time, which was 3,169 mpg.
and as for the value of such academic competitions not only to the technically relevant fields but to the education of future engineers, I don't imagine one person on any 'extreme' or highly conceptual collegiate design project would say it has not been an incredibly valuable educational experience. we're producing higher quality engineers here, not by teaching them to build ships but by 'instilling in them a love for the sea.'
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Dinos Kynigos | 19 Nov 2012 5:16 pm
Dear team.
It is been some months now and I do not know at what stage the project is. I have an adivises to give you though.
Do not focuse just on winning but instead into producing new technology that can be used for the improvement of mankind and save the planet. This is not a race to come first and get personal benefits. It is a race to save the planet and there is no time left as CO2 will kill us all !!!
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