Eco-Warrior

Driving Shell’s showcase car for the Prototype class of its eco-Marathon competition. One that does 177km to a litre.

- Tuhin Guha

With all the talk about ecoconsciousness in cars and the sense of thrift that it’s associated with, we’ve started to think of such cars to be lifeless and commodity-like. Like something that has no business being even vaguely involving. As if it were penance for our previous misdeeds.

So recently when I got a chance to take a spin in an eco-friendly car, I wasn’t expecting to find myself experiencing something extraordinary. Especially when you keep in mind I was driving Shell’s showcase car for the Prototype class of its Eco-marathon competition. One that does 177km to a litre.

I got a chance to drive this car at the Sepang Circuit in Malaysia, during Shell’s Make The Future Live. The main attraction here was the Asia leg of the Shell Eco-marathon, an event that the energy giant uses to bring forth the newest and brightest minds in engineering and science. It does it through a college level competition where students build the most fuel-efficient car possible.