Bosch Technology Innovation Award
The jury was especially impressed by students’ enthusiasm for innovation and how they had worked hard to introduce new technical ideas into their designs and projects, whether inspired by the latest high-tech standards or technologies of the past. Technical innovation was not lacking, but translating it into a winning car proved more challenging for many team, and many of the vehicles entered suffered reliability issues preventing them from completing the race.
Winner:
ESSTIN Nancy (race no. 203), for a compelling entry that was innovative on many fronts. Not only did the team develop and build a fuel cell engine—without using precious metals such as gold—which delivered high energy efficiencies (70%), it also developed an innovative test bench allowing the team them to test their vehicle without incurring the expense of hiring a track. Moreover, an integrated GPS communications system ensured constant tracking of the team’s vehicle from the base station.
Highly recommended:
KTH team (race no. 340) from Sweden in the UrbanConcept category whose parallel series hybrid incorporated a powertrain similar to that of a Toyota Prius, the first time a hybrid of this engineering standard has been presented at the Shell Eco-marathon Europe.
Burg Giebichenstein University for Art and Design, Germany, (race no. 81), whose Prototype vehicle incorporated an opposed-piston engine using the celebrated Junkers system formerly used in aviation technology. Manufacturing the pistons of carbon fibre eliminated the need for oil-based lubricants, another clever innovation.
Jury Composition:
Denis Gougeon, Bosch
Klaus Brieter, ADAC
Mario Kurtz, Shell
Jon Winding Sörensen, Bilforlaget