In a fantastic achievement for groundbreaking local firm Shetland Composites, Oxford University's Energy and Power Group recently won the Technical Innovation Award at the Shell Eco Challenge in Rotterdam for their super-efficient vehicle 'Peggie'.
Shetland Composites who work for major names in the renewables, marine, fisheries and packaging industries in the fields of carbon fibre, polyester and epoxy resin fabrication and design, designed and built Peggie's six kg, composite carbon fibre technology shell.
The event seeks to find the vehicle which can complete 10 laps of a 1.6km track at an average speed of 25kph using the least amount of energy from the propulsion batteries. The team managed to prevail against numerous problems to register three valid attempts and a 50%+ improvement on last year's range, achieving 564km/kWh (Oxford to Minsk on the equivalent of a pint of petrol). Team Peggie were awarded the overall technical innovation prize out of a pool of over 200 teams from across Europe.
