By Our Correspondent
Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India: The Shell Eco-Marathon is an internationally renowned competition held annually, that challenges student teams from around the world to design and build energy-efficient vehicles. Team AVERERA, since its establishment in 2013, has been participating in this competition, and is now one of the leading teams globally. This year, the team participated and represented India in the Shell Eco-Marathon (Asia Pacific and Middle East) 2023 held at the Pertamina Mandalika International Street Circuit, Lombok Island, Indonesia from 4th to 9th July 2023.
This year, the competition was attended by more than 80 teams from 15 countries. Team AVERERA participated with its vehicle in the Urban-Concept Battery Electric category and was the only Indian team to attend the event in this category. The team’s vehicle is made of carbon fiber material to minimize body weight without compromising driver safety. It is highly aerodynamic, ergonomic, and lightweight as electric efficiency is the main goal of the competition.
The team attended the on-track event of the Shell Eco-Marathon competition for the first time after 2019. Earlier, the team had participated in the Prototype vehicle category, and changing the vehicle category to Urban-Concept this year was a new experience for the team. In the on-track event, the team successfully cleared the ‘Technical and Safety Inspection’ for their vehicle on the very first attempt itself, which says a lot about the competency and dedication of the team. The team said that attending the on-track event at the Asia Pacific and Middle East stage is a very valuable experience and will lead the team to achieve even more in the future.
The ‘Carbon Footprint Reduction Award’, a prestigious accolade by Shell, is presented to the team which best describes the process to design their next generation vehicle to reduce vehicle carbon footprint while maintaining or improving their vehicle’s mileage performance.
Team AVERERA has been declared the Winner of this award for its innovative and practical ideas to reduce the carbon footprint of its future vehicles. Winning this award is a testament to the team’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions and creating a cleaner, greener, and more sustainable future. The team has won USD 3,000 (approx. INR 2.5 Lakhs) as the Prize money with a Winner’s Trophy on stage.
Dr. Pramod Kumar Jain, Director of IIT (BHU) Varanasi, congratulated Team AVERERA for their achievement in this year’s competition and for making IIT (BHU) Varanasi and the nation proud. He said that Team AVERERA has been consecutively bringing laurels to the institute at a global platform and achieving new milestones each year.
A team of dedicated faculty members of IIT (BHU) Varanasi including Dr. Amitesh Kumar (Mechanical Engineering), Dr. Sandip Ghosh (Electrical Engineering), and Dr. Shyam Kamal (Electrical Engineering) are mentoring Team AVERERA with the constant support of Dr. Vikash Kumar Dubey – Dean (R&D) in their technological development journey.
The key people of the team that participated in this event include Jaynil Sheth, Naitik Singh, Prateek, Prathamesh Adhav, Shubh Khandelwal, Anushka Chopada, Aryasen Gupta, Darshan Kumar Jajoria, Neeraj Kumar, Sahil Gupta, Sugavanesh K R, and Tarun Kumar.
The team works in the IC Engine Lab of the institute, where it has developed its Urban-Concept vehicle. With a strong commitment to sustainable mobility, most of the parts of this vehicle except the motors, are designed and developed in-house by the team. The team thanked the Main Workshop, IIT (BHU) for its support in the manufacturing of vehicle parts. Apart from the Shell Eco-Marathon competition, keeping the future of the automotive industry in mind, Team AVERERA is also dedicatedly working on developing and improving its autonomous systems for an electric vehicle with some successful tests already done on its test bench.
