World students develop sustainable cars

world-wide collaboration between engineering students to develop sustainable prototypes has already resulted in four pre-prototypes, one inspired by the Sinclair C5, with plans to take one design on into crash testing and production. The four pre-prototypes came out of the Vehicle Design Summit held during 2006 at the Masschusetts Institute of Technology. 55 student engineers from 21 universities spent 8 weeks coming up with four designs: one human/solar/electric powered, and the others powered by biofuel, fuel cells and straight electric. In response to our comment that the first one, exhibited at SolidWorks World in New Orleans, bore a striking resemblance to the Sinclair C5, both in appearance and concept, Jerrod Bouchard, from the University of Missouri-Rolla told us that he had been well aware of the C5 and thought the whole idea of it had been, “Real cool.” Addressing a Sustainability Forum at the event, co-director Anna Jaffe revealed the VDS 1.0 is to be followed by VDS 2.0, in which design will be, “Distributed all round the world” with the goal of producing prototypes of a car capable of 200 mpg, 150 mile range, 0 to 60 in under 6 seconds and 120 mph top speed in 8 months. 40 pre-production prototype are to be built for crash testing in two years. More information from Vehicle Design Summit