Hydrogen wins Eco-Marathon

Hydrogen-powered cars won in both categories in the Shell Eco-Marathon that was run in Germany last week. The Dutch team called The Hydro Cruisers from The Hague won the Urban Concepts class.

 Cars running on hydrogen won in both categories in the 26th Shell Eco-Marathon, which was run in Lausitz in Germany on 6 and 7 May. The winners, the Polytech' Nantes team from France, broke the old 2005 world record in the Prototypes category with a hydrogen-powered car that ran for 4896 kilometres on a single litre of fuel. The Dutch team called The Hydro Cruisers from The Hague won the Urban Concepts class. The hydrogen-powered cars did very well in any case: six of the top ten vehicles ran on this sustainable fuel. There were four teams from the Netherlands with hydrogen vehicles, two of which drove to the end of the race: The Hydro Cruisers and the Phidippides team from the Hogeschool Rotterdam.

The Shell Eco-Marathon is for students at universities and institutes for technical and scientific education from all parts of Europe. The intention is that they set up teams to develop vehicles that can run as far as possible on a single litre of fuel. This can be conventional fuel (petrol, diesel or LPG) or an alternative fuel (biofuel, ethanol, solar energy or hydrogen). There are two categories: the Prototypes, which usually have a futuristic and streamlined appearance, and the Urban Concepts, which look more like contemporary cars. This year there were 213 teams from 22 countries competing at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz circuit.