The Most Fuel Efficient Car In The World
The Pac-Car holds the Guinness World Record as the most fuel efficient car. Built by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology to demonstrate how economical a car can be, it traveled 5385 km for the equivalent energy of only 1 litre of petrol. This corresponds to 0.0186 litres/100km, or 12,646 miles per gallon! This means the Pac-Car would only use 8 litres of fuel to drive around the globe.
This amazing record was set on June 26, 2005, at the Shell Eco-Marathon, a fuel efficiency event that is held annually at different locations around the world. The 2005 event at Ladoux in France saw the economical little Pac-Car travel 20.6 km and consume approximately 1 g of Hydrogen, driving at an average speed of 30 km/h (roughly 18.6 mph). The Pac-Car was powered by two 18V 150W electric motors and a fuel cell converted hydrogen into electricity for the motors. As well as incredible fuel efficiency the car had zero emissions, with pure water the only by-product.
Weight and aerodynamics were also important in contributing to the success of the worlds most fuel efficient car. The Pac-Car was constructed from carbon fibre and weighed only 30kg. It was also highly aerodynamic with a drag coefficient of just 0.075. By comparison the Ford Escape has a Cd of 0.4 and a Toyota Prius 0.29.
Fuel cells could be a power source of the future for cars. Currently they are too expensive, prone to breaking and have too short a lifespan to be a practical alternative to internal combustion engines and battery powered motors. But watch this space because lots of research and development is underway in this area.
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