Indonesian winners crowned in race for energy efficiency

A student team from Indonesia won the Grand Final of the Shell Eco-marathon Drivers' World Championship. ITS Team 2 from Surabaya, Indonesia, fought off competition from teams around the world.

The team, from the Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, won by being first to cross the finish line after 10 laps of a 0.9km (0.59 mile) track in an internal-combustion engine car. It makes them the second Indonesian team to win the Drivers' World Championship in the three years since the competition was first introduced to the programme.

Shell Eco-marathon Drivers' World Championship Grand Final saw winners from regional competitions in Asia, the Americas and Europe compete in a head-to-head race to find the most energy-efficient vehicle.

It took place on July 8, which was then the UK's hottest day of 2018.

Shell Eco-marathon Overview

Shell Eco-marathon is currently made up of two key competitions: Mileage Challenge and Drivers' World Championship.

Student teams have the option of competing in two vehicle categories for the Mileage Challenge across the weekend: Prototype and UrbanConcept.

In the Prototype category, drivers squeeze into aerodynamic vehicles, typically lying on their backs to steer around the 0.9km (0.59 mile) track. Cars in this category compete exclusively in the Mileage Challenge, with incredible results in energy efficiency.

In the UrbanConcept category, cars look more familiar to modern-day vehicles. Built to roadworthy specifications, their extra weight makes them less fuel-efficient than Prototype cars, but they are still able to achieve impressive results to modern-day vehicles.

UrbanConcept category winners can go on to compete in the Drivers' World Championship, and this year three teams successfully took part in a pilot Autonomous UrbanConcept Category competition – giving a possible glimpse into the future with their driverless cars.

Cars are then divided by energy type: internal combustion engine, battery electric, and hydrogen fuel cell cars.

Saluting the winners

Winners of the Prototype category included Microjoule-La Joliverie from Lycee Saint-Joseph La Joliverie, France (internal-combustion engine), Eco-Dimoni from IES Cotes Baixes, Spain (battery electric) and ThaiGer-H2-Racing Stralsund, from University of Applied Sciences Stralsund, Germany (hydrogen fuel cell).

In the UrbanConcept category the winners were DTU Roadrunners from the Technical University of Denmark (internal-combustion engine), INSA de Toulouse from Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse III, France (battery-electric) and UMAKIT from Uludag University, Turkey (hydrogen).

"With a new track and a heatwave in London, the European competition was more challenging than ever," said Shanna Simmons, Shell Eco-marathon Global Technical Director.

"However, the engineers competing in this event are always up to the challenge, and we even saw the first autonomous teams successfully make it to the track in the European pilot."