Baldos best Swedish car in Shell Eco-Marathon
Best Swedish car, prize for best safety and a 2nd place among cars running on ethanol in the category "urban concept" There you have the performance of students from Luleå University of Technology in Team Baldos as this weekend has participated in the European competition Shell Eco Marathon. There were two trophies for the team who went home completely satisfied
- It feels great to have performed so well in the competition, and indeed very nice. We had an own goal before the race that we would make running 200 kilometres on an equivalent of one liter petrol which we passed by a wide margin, and in fact we have passed all the goals we had, says Maria Rodiouchkina LTU students' project manager of Team Baldos.
Again, the students at Luleå University of Technology demonstrated that it is possible to accomplish great things if you only have iron control of the situation. It proved to be a winning ticket, as the students did, to go for simple solutions in the form of a robust engine and drivetrain in this year's version of the cranberry red car Baldos II. Master students of the team read Mechanical Engineering at Luleå University of Technology, and managed to take home two trophies from this year's Shell Eco Marathon held in Dutch Rotterdam.
After passing the approved testyards along the path, that was needed to continue in the race, Team Baldos constantly improved their performance. Other Swedish universities did not, which means that the LTU students red car Baldos was best Swedish car in the race. Baldos II drove a total of 223.3 km on the equivalent of 1 liter of gasoline, resulting in a second position, after Technical University of Denmark, in the group of cars that run on ethanol and a sixth place overall in the competition. Not only that, Team Baldos managed also to win the price of safety (safety award) and even a trophy.
- Safety award means that we have had good safety for our drivers, the team that worked on the car and the environment around the car, for example, as we have had good track of our equipment in good order in cabinets and drawers, says Maria Rodiouchkina.
In addition to good ranking and award the results mean that LTU students far has exceeded their own targets for the competition, namely to beat the performance of Baldos from 2010. Then the car could run 137 kilometers on 1 liter of petrol. This means that Team Baldos after this year's competition has driven more than 80 kilometres longer than before with the little red car.
