Automotive

Flat-pack cardboard and plywood car scoops Eco-Design award at Shell Eco-Marathon

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Aston University's hydrogen-fueled, flat-pack cardboard and plywood creation
Aston University's hydrogen-fueled, flat-pack cardboard and plywood creation
Aston University's hydrogen-fueled, flat-pack cardboard and plywood creation
At the European Eco-Marathon event
At the European Eco-Marathon event
Prototyping
At the European Eco-Marathon event
Prototyping
Picking up the prize
Aston University's hydrogen-fueled, flat-pack cardboard and plywood creation
Picking up the prize
At the European Eco-Marathon event
At the European Eco-Marathon event
At the European Eco-Marathon event
At the European Eco-Marathon event
View gallery - 14 images

Aston University's entry into this year's Shell Eco-Marathon may look a little low-tech, but that didn't stop the hydrogen-fueled, flat-pack cardboard and plywood car from scooping the Eco-Design award at the European event, held in Rotterdam in May.

The use of environmentally-friendly materials extends right down to the tire covers, made from a bio-resin incorporating hessian fibers. The panels of the body are made from a plywood-cardboard-plywood composite, with the outer layers obtained from a sustainable source, qualifying them for certification by the British Forestry Commission.

The body is designed to for flat-pack shipping and assembly, allowing for more efficient shipping, which no doubted contributed to the team's winning of the prize.

The apparently nameless car, powered by a Nexa Ballard hydrogen fuel cell, was entered into the "UrbanConcept" category of the Eco-Marathon. The event saw 3000 students from 24 countries and 200 teams competed in the European event, in which cars don't race in the traditional sense, but instead seek to demonstrate fuel efficiency.

This year's European event saw three records broken. Team Electricar Solution from France achieved a range of 262.6 km (163.2 miles) per kilowatt-hour in the same "UrbanConcept" category as the team from Aston. DTU Roadrunners from the Technical University of Denmark achieved a fuel efficiency of 611.1 km per liter (1437 mpg) in the same category, beating their own record by 102.1 km per liter (240 mpg).

MAC Eco Team from the Netherlands smashed the fuel efficiency record of 138 km per liter (325 mpg) set in the Prototype category in 2011, achieving 416.3 km per liter (979 mpg).

Sources: Aston University, team website, Shell; via Gas 2.0

View gallery - 14 images
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14 comments
Slowburn
What are your odds of surviving being bumped by a truck while driving it?
The Hoff
Slowburn. It's about competition, not prying your gas truck out of your hands.
Slowburn
Competition is fine but over the life of a daily driver I'd bet the weight penalty of a flat pack car would out weigh the fuel savings of being shipped in a flat packed condition. especially with the move to inclosed car carrier trucks.
JPAR
Expect to see them on the shelves of IKEA this time next year...... actually, Im more interested in the material/manufacture costs. If cheap enough, could easily see this sort of easy to self maintain/repair vehicle get a slice of the third world market (where safety is generally irrelevant). Don't think it'll ship with a hydrogen fuel cell though.... how about sticking a simple engine on it?
Frank Lee
Slow: so glad you brought up odds of encounters with trucks; what are they anyway? If I drive 50,000 miles/year for 500 years, will that be enough driving to become a truck/car collision fatality?
Michael Mantion
Frank the odds of being hit by a car/truck are great. The odds of survival has a lot to do with the vehicle. I am 35 never had an accident in over 500k miles. Once I almost go hit by a car passing me. I slowed abruptly to avoid a definite collision and got rear ended for the trouble. My SUV with traction control had a busted bumper and broken tail light. In this thing I would of been dead.
I am not saying safety is the only thing to consider in a car design, if we had computers driving I would be fine with the above, but as long as humans are behind the wheel I am not taking the chance.
That said I don't think the above car is intended for real world use anyways. This is just an expensive adult version of the boy scouts pine wood derby.
Slowburn
re; Frank Lee I was really asking about crash safety in general whether it be a bump by a truck or T-boned by a Honda running a red light.
The flat pack design sounds heavy for the structural integrity it provides and the energy consumed by shipping the car from the factory to the dealer/destination is an infinitesimal percentage of total lifetime energy consumption and dragging the extra weight around will quickly eat whatever savings that were achieved in shipping.
Frank Lee
Too bad they didn't post the WEIGHT of the little deathtrap- slow must have access to information they didn't present. Mike- go research what the REAL odds are of being a traffic fatality, using REAL statistics, then get back to us on how dangerous it is out on the roads. After that we can work on assessing the risk of dying in something small vs something large.
pointyup
Sounds like a throw away car. Put it on the road with lead acid batteries and a range of 300km, bet it would sell. Safety? Fill all empty spaces with foam rubber or urathane.
cj1058
Hi, I'm one of the designers for the car, happy to answer any questions about it.
The idea behind the car was to explore alternative materials, manufacturing processes, logistical processes and areas within the life cycle of the car that negatively affect the environment. The car is not something that will go straight in to production, but a collaboration of ideas that question current automotive production and consider the future of automotive technology.
What’s the point in designing a concept car for the future that is built using the same materials and processes of today’s cars?
The total weight of the car is 170kg, it does 50mpg and about 25mph.