Kerala students develop an electric car, Wins international competition

Thiruvananthapuram: Students of the Government Engineering College Barton Hill in Kerala have designed an electric car and won an award at Shell Eco-Marathon (SEM) 2022 held in Indonesia.

The car is named Vandy and it was designed with the mentorship of Acsia Technologies. The State minister for Higher Education, R BIND helped the team to access grants and government schemes. It took the team around 10 months to complete the prototype that weighs 80 kg and has a top speed of 27 km/hr. An innovative battery thermal management system that the team developed using the PCM 1-Tetradecanol was in focus. It also has a drowsiness detection system using non-intrusive sensors that utilises AI to identify if the driver is fit to drive or not and act accordingly.

The team Pravega of 19 also received an honourable mention at the international energy efficiency competition. The team also won the 'International Award for Safety' from Dupont and Honourable Mention for the International Award for Technical Innovation, said an official statement.

"It's truly an accomplishment for us. This project offered us a unique opportunity to utilise and widen our engineering skills to create something which is sustainable and environmentally-friendly," said team leader Kalyani S Kumar.

Jijimon Chandran, founder and CEO, Acsia Technologies, said it is very exciting to see the students winning two major achievements at a global competition. "Our goal is to continue to mentor our student community, imparting relevant knowledge, increasing their industry readiness, and supporting their growth towards becoming world-class engineers," he added.

The Shell Eco-marathon is an international competition where students from all around the world design, build, and test cars and the goal is to build cars with high mileage. Five teams from India qualified for this year's competition.