Students from the National Electrical and Mechanical School (ENSEM) Nancy in Meurthe-et-Moselle arrived in second place at the Shell Eco-Marathon, in India, on October 12 in a hydrogen vehicle.

They are not a little proud, ENSEM students from Nancy. They are vice world championsShell Eco Marathon which took place on October 12 in India. They arrived a second after another French team, namely Toulouse, with electric vehicles. The specialty of Lorraine is that they compete with hydrogen vehicles.

“For us, this is an unprecedented performance that we did not think we could achieve by participating in this world championship.“, explained Léo-Paul Carré to us.”In the space of one day, we went from zero points to 77 points, pushing us straight into second place on the starting grid.“

It must be said that the story is quite delicious. Initially the ENSEM vehicle did not qualify for the grand final because it finished fourth in the event in France. However, fate said differently because the withdrawal of the third ranked team opened the door to the grand final in Bangalore, India. A hotly contested final where engineering students compete in engineering to win.

The people of Nancy are not unfit. Quite the opposite. “We brought back two titles to our school: the world’s most efficient hydrogen vehicle and the world’s second vehicle in all categories combined..”

Eco-Marathon is a competition between engineering schools from all over the world. The goal is to design, build, and drive the most efficient, as well as the most energy efficient, vehicles. This is the first time in 25 years that a school team has qualified for this final. To achieve this, the students worked hard. Léo-Paul told us: “It was the same vehicle for the school for eight years. The artificial structure is made of carbon fiber. It changes shape over time. Originally made with recycled materials. After qualifying for the finals in India, we redoubled our efforts. We changed the direction. We also replaced the additional battery. The engine is powered by hydrogen. This small electronic device is powered by a lithium battery.”

ENSEM student vehicle, Urban 2, is a single seater. It is three meters long and one meter high. It runs on hydrogen, a feature that has both advantages and disadvantages. “We were the only team in Europe to use hydrogen for the final. We have proven that we have equivalent performance with thermal vehicles and electric vehicles.“

This is a performance that the entire team can put on their CV as the work done for this competition also counts towards their curriculum.