This year's event hosted 197 teams from 26 countries and aimed to involve European citizens in challenges related to energy and mobility, while inspiring them to consider innovative solutions. The teams compete in two different car design categories: Prototype and UrbanConcept, with a choice of seven different energy types. The winners are the teams that go the furthest using the equivalent of one litre of gasoline.
In 1985 the winning vehicle would have been efficient enough to travel from Rotterdam to London on just one litre of fuel. The team that went furthest this year, team Microjoule-La Joliverie, could travel from Rotterdam to Moscow on the same quantity of fuel with their 2551.8km/l performance in the Prototype CNG category.
Norman Koch, global technical director, Shell Eco-marathon said: "Three new track records have been set and we saw particular improvement in the UrbanConcept category. Overall, teams delivered improved designs and leveraged innovation in software and driving control, as was evidenced by the winner of the Technical Innovation award, Vector Ecoteam."
Vector Ecoteam who competed in the Prototype category with a battery electric vehicle developed
a control system which fine-tunes the vehicle speed by computer to ensure the lowest energy use.
In the Prototype category, team TED of France achieved 2308.3km/l with gasoline and team IUT GMP Valenciennes set a new track record of 1323.1 km/l with diesel.
In the UrbanConcept category, team Lycee Louis Delage of France achieved a track record of 517.3 km/l with gasoline; team DTU Roadrunners of Denmark achieved a track record of 665 km/l with ethanol. Team Schluckspecht from Germany claimed their trophy for the third time in a row with diesel.
This is the last Shell Eco-marathon Europe to be hosted in Rotterdam, the competition will move to London for 2016.
