Imperial team ranks 2nd in Europe & Africa Shell Eco-Marathon Competition
The student team set a new all-time British record by taking a risky, redesign-focused approach.
Imperial’s Project Exergy team achieved 1st in the UK and 2nd in Shell’s annual Eco-Marathon Competition, held in Poland the last week of June. The event was the third of four Mileage Challenges around the world, where teams compete to design, build, and test ultra energy-efficient vehicles.
The 19-student team, representing the work of a total of 60 contributors, achieved a prototype electric battery efficiency of 964.0 km/kWh, establishing a new all-time British record that earned second place in their electric-battery prototype category.
By also winning the Technical Innovation off-track award, their combined score allows their qualification to the first ever Shell Eco-marathon Global Championship, scheduled for Qatar 2027.
No guts, no glory
The team’s success is owed to their clean-slate approach, which involved extensive redesigning of car parts that previously followed a predictable pattern: “excessive (sometimes reckless) redesign paid off here”, says Tanmay Lad, Electronics Team Lead and Imperial PhD student within the EEE Department.
Louis Gillick, Deputy Technical Director, identifies motor control, drivetrain, battery, and steering as the key areas of innovation behind the car’s performance. However, the team’s ambitious redesign came with limitations: “compared to the other top teams, we are very new and poorly equipped”, he says.
The Project Exergy team received a total of $5,000 for efficiency in their category and the Technical Innovation Award, invested toward further unlocking the car’s performance.
Beyond the Eco-Marathon vehicles, the Qatar 2027 final aims to encourage tackling real-world problems, featuring competitions in multiple disciplines.
