Swedish Studes Build World's Most Efficient Electric Rail Car

The Delsbo Electric Vehicle Challenge in Sweden--an electric car competition that involves running a battery-powered vehicle with six passengers along three kilometers of railroad track--brings students from all over the north European country once a year to build, tweak and test their electric creations. It recently crowned a new champion, the Eximus IV, a collaborative creation by students from Dalarna University and Chalmers Technical University. The futuristic-looking rail car managed to shatter every record in the competition with its 687 MPGe (294 km/l) capacity.

Team Eximus used aircraft materials on the vehicle to make it lightweight and flexible as it possibly can. The students also had the car undergo wind tunnel tests to improve the vehicle’s performance and aerodynamics.

The Delsbo Electric competition is held on a railroad track to minimize rolling resistance. The six total passengers are required to have an average weight of 50 kgs per person. As you may imagine, the cars really don't go that fast, but speed isn't really the goal of the competition, as you can see for yourself in the video below.

Team Eximus has become somewhat of a legend in the Delsbo circuit, as it has constantly submitted a better version of its car with each competition, setting world records each consecutive year since it joined in 2016.

Nevertheless, it's an understatement to call the efficiency numbers achieved by these cars impressive. Hopefully, such numbers will make it to production cars someday.