含羞草传媒

U of T's Supermileage Team hopes to reclaim top spot at Detroit competition

Students race hyper-efficient gasoline and battery-powered vehicles at the Shell Eco-marathon Americas competition
photo of Mengqi Wang
Supermileage Team lead Mengqi Wang hopes improvements to her team鈥檚 student-designed and student-built vehicles will get them to the podium at the Shell Eco-marathon Americas competition (photo by Marit Mitchell)

The 含羞草传媒鈥檚 Supermileage Team is hoping to take back the top spot at the .

After snagging a silver medal last year, the team 鈥 made up of U of T Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering students 鈥 has been working around the clock this year to design and build two hyper-efficient vehicles to race in two categories: gasoline prototype and battery electric. The vehicles will be put to the test April 27 to 30 in Detroit.

鈥淟ast year, we didn鈥檛 meet our own expectations 鈥 the team felt pretty deflated after the race,鈥 says Supermileage team lead Mengqi Wang, a PhD candidate. 鈥淎 lot of things went wrong that we weren鈥檛 expecting.鈥

They鈥檝e now made some critical upgrades to the gasoline prototype vehicle, including improved braking, drive train and clutch systems, reduced rolling resistance and a new windshield, all of which they hope will help them recapture the first-place title they won in 2015.

鈥淥f course we鈥檙e hoping to win, but the competition is fierce. We鈥檇 be happy with a top three finish,鈥 says Wang.

Fabricating the windshield proved a particular challenge. At past competitions, driver Kristine Confalone had to navigate largely by radio cues and intuition. The team stacked up almost 20 prototypes as the students worked with industry partner to get the window clear enough for Confalone to see.

The new battery electric vehicle will be hitting the track for the first time. It has been an ambitious experiment from the start. Wang says that with a new design and rookie driver, they hope to establish a baseline in the category 鈥 a standard for future generations of the team to surpass.

Future vehicles will be designed and built in the forthcoming, where the team will have a dedicated club space on the lower floor of the new building.

鈥淭he CEIE is going to make a big difference to what the team can achieve,鈥 says Wang. 鈥淚鈥檓 imagining being able to work on our systems simultaneously and do the machining we do by hand, all in one place. It鈥檚 going to be great.鈥

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