Students battle against the clock to combine project work with exams

Members of the University of Southampton’s student Electric Vehicles Society are forging ahead with their innovative entry for this summer’s Shell Eco-marathon contest.

Their engineering skills are being tested to the limit as they work on an ultra-efficient battery-powered vehicle to compete against more than 200 others in London at the end of June. All the teams are striving to get as far as they can on the equivalent of one litre of fuel.

The engineering and electronic and computer science students are making progress on the chassis, sourcing wheels and tyres, perfecting the powertrain and getting ready to cast the bodywork from fibre glass. Earlier, the team tested a model in the University’s wind tunnel to prove the concept.

Project leader, BEng Mechanical Engineering student Andreas Zimmermann admits they are a little behind schedule but remains confident everything will come together in time. “I knew it would be a time management challenge to bring together all of the strands but we are also writing up the results of our individual projects and preparing for exams so it isn’t easy,” he says.

So far, there have been both successes and setbacks. Custom-made wheels have arrived from Hong Kong but specialist tyres turned out to be the wrong size and needed to be replaced. On the positive side, a state-of-the-art controller has been designed to link the battery with the motor and the vehicle’s aerodynamic body will soon be made for the students at Southampton City College. The team has also secured sponsorship from several companies including Aston Martin.

Andreas founded the Electric Vehicle Society on arriving at Southampton Working closely with him on this project are MEng Aeronautics and Astronautics students Diogo Cardia Lopes, Michael Yu and Stefano Cinti.

In the 2015 Shell Eco-marathon European competition, held in the Netherlands, the winning team from France achieved 2,551 km/litre, the distance between Rotterdam and Moscow, with a vehicle powered by compressed natural gas.