Alterno – A fuel-efficient e-car | Fusion - WeRIndia

Electric cars or e-cars are gaining popularity. Hence, several manufacturers try to bring many models of cars into the market. Many engineers are also trying to design new models.

These engineering students at IIT (BHU) Varanasi designed the most fuel-efficient e-car.

Team Averera is a team of 24 members trying to build various models of energy-efficient cars in the automobile sector. Their main objective is to deal with environmental issues.

They built unique electric three-wheeler – Alterno in 2018. The car weighs around 40 kgs and the efficiency of the car was 349.6 km/kWh.

This car is the most energy-efficient in India and it is the third most fuel-efficient electric vehicle in Asia.

The team won the second position in the battery-electric prototype category at the Shell Eco-marathon held in Malaysia in 2019.

Like many other successful people, Averera’s journey is also not a smooth one. The team got through several hurdles and difficulties.

The journey began when they participated in Shell Eco-marathon (SEMs) 2015.

The team was one of the few teams to represent the country, however, due to lack of experience, it could not clear technical inspection.

In 2016, even though they cleared the round, their motor controller blew due to non-handling of the humid environment.

The team wanted to design the most fuel-efficient vehicle in Asia. For this, they modified their design Alterno.

They kept the weight of the model under 40 kg. They designed a carbon fibre monocoque chassis.

To optimize efficiency, they made several alternations including tear-drop aerodynamic shape implementation of neural networks.

A special brushless DC motor (BLDC) motor controller is designed to function efficiently as per track conditions.

With all these modifications, Alterno achieved an efficiency of 462.5 km/kWh.

They want to improve it further to 550 km/kWh. They aim to achieve Asia’s most fuel-efficient car.

Image Reference: Thebetterindia