Media Releases

U of T Supermileage Team to unveil new fleet of super-efficient student-built vehicles

April 14, 2016

Toron­to, ON – Imag­ine dri­ving from Toron­to to San Fran­cis­co and back on three litres of gaso­line. That’s exact­ly the kind of vehi­cle a Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Suo­er­mileage Team, will be unveil­ing on April 16 along with anoth­er bat­tery-elec­tric pow­ered car. It’s all part of the team’s effort to retain its first-place title at the 2016 Shell Eco-marathon Amer­i­c­as (SEMA) chal­lenge, a glob­al fuel-effi­cien­cy com­pe­ti­tion tak­ing place in Detroit, MI from April 22–24, 2016.

Last year, the team came in first place with a vehi­cle that could go from Toron­to to Mon­tre­al and back on less than a litre of fuel. This year, Toronto’s next gen­er­a­tion of U of T Engi­neer­ing stu­dents have their eyes on sur­pass­ing the Amer­i­c­as-wide record of 1,431 kilo­me­tres per litre (3,365 miles per gal­lon). For the first time, the team will also enter a sec­ond pro­to­type vehi­cle, the UT5, in the bat­tery-elec­tric cat­e­go­ry.

The U of T Super­mileage Team will face com­pe­ti­tion from a num­ber of oth­er Cana­di­an teams enter­ing this year’s Amer­i­c­as com­pe­ti­tion, includ­ing those from the Uni­ver­si­ty of British Colum­bia, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Alber­ta, Con­cor­dia Uni­ver­si­ty, Uni­ver­sité Laval, Uni­ver­sité de Sher­brooke and École de tech­nolo­gie supérieure (ETS).

In advance of the com­pe­ti­tion, we’d love to host you at U of T for a first-hand glimpse of this year’s gaso­line pro­to­type vehi­cle test dri­ve around the U of T stu­dent cir­cle. Video and pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ties will be avail­able, and we can also coor­di­nate for you to inter­view team cap­tain, Mengqi Wang, and dri­ver Kris­tine Con­falone.

WHAT: U of T’s reign­ing cham­pi­ons of SEMA 2015 will test dri­ve their lat­est gaso­line pro­to­type vehi­cle mod­el, and unveil their first ever bat­tery-elec­tric vehi­cle tech­nol­o­gy at a send-off event at Toronto’s U of T cam­pus.

All media are wel­come to attend the event.

WHEN: Sat­ur­day, April 16, 2016
Media Avail­abil­i­ty: 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

WHERE: Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, Con­vo­ca­tion Hall
15 King’s Col­lege Cir, Toron­to, ON M5S 3H7, Cana­da (See map below)

WHO: Inter­views are avail­able on site with Mengqi Wang and Kris­tine Con­falone of U of T’s stu­dent team.

-30-

For more infor­ma­tion:

Mar­it Mitchell
Fac­ul­ty of Applied Sci­ence & Engi­neer­ing
Office: 416–978-4498
Cell: 647–228-4358
Marit.mitchell@utoronto.ca

 

Jes­si­ca Kitchen,
Edel­man
Office: 416–849-2839
Cell: 905–767-1955
Jessica.kitchen@edelman.com