While Shell is primarily known to be a lubricant company, but has its fingers into other pies as well. The engine oil manufacturer took the wraps off a city car which is ultra-efficient. Shell says that over the normal life-cycle of a normal city car, the Shell concept car uses up to 34 per cent less energy over the same time. The same car when compared to an SUV uses 69 per cent less fuel.
Shell concept car
In essence, the Shell concept car is a much improved version of the T.25 city car which was designed by Gordon Murray himself, in 2010. Also, Shell has manufactured prototype oil exclusively for the concept car so as to enhance the efficiency. The concept car is built around Gordon Murray's patented iStream platform. Shell has tried and kept the weight to a bare minimum. Thanks to Murray's exhaustive experience in designing F1 racecars, lightweight components, 3D printed parts and recycled carbon-fibre, the Shell concept car ends up weighing just 550kgs. Therefore, the overall fuel efficiency figure of the concept car comes to an astonishing 38kmpl, according to New European Driving Cycle (NEDC). The average driving speed was 70kmph. The concept car also produced 28 per cent lower emissions than a conventional petrol powered car and 32 per cent lesser emissions than a hybrid car. The three-cylinder petrol engine was developed by Osamu Goto at their Geo Technology facility. Shell itself has manufactured the fluids for the car. The bespoke engine oil is a derivative of the 'Shell Helix Ultra with PurePlus technology'.
Step inside and you can see that the three seats are arranged in a triangular form i.e. one single seat upfront, at the centre and two seats at the rear on either side of the front seat. Shell has also developed an app for the concept car. The app gives real time feedback via an on-screen graphic display and other information such as speed, efficiency and so on.
