From April 10th to 12th, more than 1,000 high school and university students from all over the Americas (Brazil, Canada, Guatemala, Mexico and the United States) will invade the streets of Detroit (USA) with a fleet of cars tailored to compete in Shell Eco-marathon Americas 2015. This is the biggest student energy efficiency contest around the world.
“The competition aims to encourage future engineers to put into practice everything they are learning at the university. In addition, the Eco-marathon encourages young talent to push the limits of fuel efficiency. It is very good to see Brazilian students competing at a global level and to realize that the topic of energy research is present in their daily lives. We at Shell are very proud to provide this experience”, comments Leíse Duarte, manager of Social Investments at Shell Brasil.
Of the 144 teams that will compete with their prototypes on the tracks in Detroit, four represent Brazil. They are engineering students from the Federal University of Itajubá (UNIFEI), the Mackenzie Presbyterian University of São Paulo, the Federal Technological University of Paraná (UTFPR) and the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC).
Brazilian history in the competition
Shell has challenged future automotive engineers and scientists to push boundaries through this competition that aims to drive the longest distance using the least amount of energy. In Europe, the dispute has been going on for thirty years. In the Americas, this will be the ninth edition and the first in the capital of the automotive industry.
In 2014, when the competition was still held in Houston (USA), the UNIFEI team – Universidade Federal de Itajubá (MG) - won third place in the prototype and electric battery category with the 'EcoVeículo' project and the mark of 264, 44 kilometers traveled per kilowatt hour – which is equivalent to covering the distance between Curitiba (PR) and Florianópolis (SC) with a single battery.
