Those looking for a super fuel efficient vehicle may perhaps have found the ultimate one - a car has been developed by a group of engineering students that covers an amazing 180 km on just one litre of petrol.
An eight-member team of students of the mechanical engineering department RV College of Engineering, Bangalore, have designed and developed the aero-dynamic extremely light weight prototype with a low power 97 cc Honda generator engine of two horse power (HP).
Team leader Nishant Sarawgi told reporters here today that the car has a chassis made of high specific strength aluminium alloy and a fibre glass shell has an air-cooled engine with moulten sized recumbent rear and two front wheels weighing 600 gms each.
At a power-point presentation of the prototype vehicle 'Project Garuda - RVCE Supermileage Car', Sarawgi, who hails from Guwahati, said the carburator is that of a TVS motorbike for better-burning efficiency and higher control over air and fuel mixture.
Simple calipher cycle brakes have been utilised as they are light weight and provide enough braking torque, he said.
The fuel efficiency of the car under test conditions on the NICE corridor in Bangalore demonstrated a mileage of 180 km per litre.
The 55 kg single-person car is ten feet long, 2.5 feet wide and high and has to be driven in a reclining position, he said.
To a querry on the viability of the prototype design being adopted into a regular car, he said ''Commercial aspects are involved. Innovations on the engine can be given a commercial turnover.''
