STUDENTS FROM NUI Galway have built a car that can do the equivalent of 10,500 miles to a gallon of diesel.

The Geec 3.0 (Galway energy-efficient car), designed and built by NUI Galway engineering students, jumped up the international rankings in the premiere global competition for extreme fuel-efficiency in cars, the Shell Eco-marathon Europe, in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London recently.

The competition is a race in efficiency, not speed, where the winner is the car that completes the course using the least amount of fuel or energy. NUI Galway was taking part for the third time, and remains the only Irish competitor.

The Geec surpassed last year’s score of 236 kilometres per kilowatt-hour on the second run.

Laura Drudy from NUI Galway, a second-year engineering student from Charlestown, Co Mayo, ready to race as the top is lowered onto the car. Ed Robinson Ed Robinson

Fourth-year engineering student Dylan Ryan from Tipperary, one of the design team leaders, said:

“The last few hours before our final runs were the make-or-break point. We knew what score we could theoretically achieve, so it was a matter of whether we wanted to take a risk and start chopping weight out of the car, or use those last few hours to tune and optimise the car. We chose to optimise.”

The Geec team completed 10 trouble-free laps with a record energy score of 354 kilometres per kilowatt-hour. This placed the team in a final 13th place of 41 competitors in the battery-electric prototype category, a jump from 21st place in 2016.

The car’s performance is the equivalent to approximately 10,500 miles per gallon of diesel.

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