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High School Students Build 2,843 MPG Car

by Tim Stevens on April 15, 2008 at 03:15 PM



Thought you were saving the environment by hitting 55 MPG in your Prius on your way in to work? Think again. A team of students from Mater Dei High School in Evansville, Indiana have laid the eco-smack down -- They developed a car that managed a whopping 2,843 miles-per-gallon in an eco-marathon competition sponsored by Shell. The event, consisting only of high school teams, saw submissions ranging from traditional gasoline-powered to somewhat more exotic fuels like solar and fuel cells.

The Mater Dei team wasn't the most efficient car out there, with a solar car achieving an equivalent mpg-rating of 2,861.8 (measured by figuring out how much electricity the car uses and then converting that to an equivalent fuel usage), but the teams also scored points for innovation and teamwork, resulting in the Mater Dei's gasoline-powered vehicle netting the $10,000 first prize.

Unfortunately, their contraption is more bicycle than auto, seats just one skinny high school student, and tops out at around 15 mph, so don't expect to see them on your morning commute. However, Mater Dei's final efficiency numbers were far beyond an anticipated 1,693 mpg, which means we're probably nowhere near the end of seeing just what this team can do.

From AutoblogGreen

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Tags: eco-marathon, environmentalism, mpg, Prius

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