West Philly High School Builds 160 MPG Supercar, Win Green Grand Prix

A group of high school students, using a kit car body designed for high performance, managed to win the Green Grand Prix rally back in April by getting 160 mpg using an old VW engine running on biodiesel and a home-built hybrid system.

The West Philly Hybrid X team is made up of teachers and students, and the team is sponsored by U.S.-based International Battery. West Philly faced off against some stiff competition from big names like the Chevy Volt and Tesla Roadster, but their unique vehicle won the day. Using a GTM kit car body from Factory Five Racing, which borrows many parts from the Chevrolet Corvette chassis, the West Philly team forwent big-block horsepower in favor of the small and efficient 1.9 liter Volkswagen diesel engine. Found in VW’s from the late 90’s and early 2000’s, these engines are quite capable of getting 50+ mpg when driven lightly, and can be made to run on biodiesel to boot.

With the 1.9 liter diesel mid-mounted in the GTM, the team next mocked up a home-built hybrid system, using International Battery’s lithium-ion battery cells, broken up into four packs distributed across the car and providing 180 volts of power. The West Philly team managed to achieve about 160 mpg over 100 miles of continuous driving, better than the 90 other teams that entered. The next-closest result was only 106 mpg.

I love this approach to fuel efficiency. The GTM kit car is the perfect choice, being aerodynamic and lightweight. The 1.9 liter VW engine is a stroke of genius as well, and it isn’t a slouch, especially in the lightweight GTM body. Reportedly, the car is also pretty damn quick when the throttle is mashed, and I believe it. Hopefully this group of kids go on to bigger and better things. Not too shabby for some teenagers, eh?

Source: Green Grand Prix via EVWorld

Chris DeMorro is a writer and gearhead who loves all things automotive, from hybrids to HEMIs. You can read about his slow descent into madness at Sublime Burnout or follow his non-nonsensical ramblings on Twitter @harshcougar.

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Tags: factory five racing, Green Grand Prix, GTM, international battery, kit car, SCCA, West Philly High School, winner

About the Author

Christopher DeMorro A writer and gearhead who loves all things automotive, from hybrids to HEMIs, Chris can be found wrenching or writing- or esle, he's running, because he's one of those crazy people who gets enjoyment from running insane distances.

http://Web matthew slinn

how the hell did they get 160mpg in a race? i’m assuming it was a race or why would they bother with the hybrid system? only electric cars at constant speeds reach that performance.
http://Web richard mills

Home grown American genius wins again! Let’s set them up with a closed down auto factory and let them go!! With a little support they could open a factory in west philly and bring some good paying jobs to the rust belt.
http://Web bob voll

Final official results of the GGP gave this team 146 mpg (160 mpg was their initial WAG later proved by officials to have been overly optimistic, so the 160 mpg figure is imaginative. Surely, our author must have known this??). The car traveled about 83 miles in the 100 mile event. Being quite familiar with the VW 1.9L TDI the only way it could get 146 mpg is by dropping the whole thing off a high cliff, provided the ignition was turned off. Most Jetta’s and Beetle’s are getting around 40 mpg with A/T and up to around 56 mpg or so with a 5-speed at constant mph. Let’s say their diesel engine was better than any other of that type, the car was lighter and more aerodynamic, so we might imagine it could get around 75 mpg. That’s a stretch but it may be possible so we cut them some slack. They used about 5/8 gallon of fuel and that would account for about 50 miles of the 83 completed. The rest of the competition would be run on the battery pack only. Actually, they probably used the battery first until it was exhausted and then turned to the diesel, cutting the battery pack completely out so recharging wouldn’t drag the engine down. But wait! Aren’t we forgetting something? Oh yes, how many tons of coal were used to charge the battery pack in the first place? You can’t get something for nothing. “Ahhh, sorry! We forgot to count that. We’re just poor disadvantaged teenagers who didn’t know better and the Drexler engineers said it would be ok.” Coal is fuel too but it went unnoticed and uncounted. So you see, there appears to be some gaming going on here. Now tell me again about that 146 mpg (aka 160 mpg)? And tell me why there is such a clamor to say the electric cars and the hybrid/electric cars are doing much better than they really are? Look at the figures on the BITW car: 90.65 miles, 106.67 mpg. These are honest figures. Proving once again that 106 ACTUAL miles per gallon (AMPG) are much better than 146 imaginative miles per gallon (IMPG). BTW, didn’t a diesel powered truck transport this diesel/electric miracle car to/from the event. BITW’s car drove to and from this event, a couple thousand miles, under it’s own power.
- http://www.sublimeburnout.com Christopher DeMorro
  
  @ Bob Voll
  
  The 160 mpg figure comes straight from the GGP’s website, right here. http://www.greengrandprix.com/2011%20Green%20Grand%20Prix%20first%20place%20finishers.pdf
  
  Now Mr. Voll, it certainly would appear that you have more first hand knowledge of this event than me. However, even you must admit there is something impressive about a bunch of high school students building a biodiesel hybrid on the body of a high performance kit car. That said, I’d love to hear more about this deisel-powered Geo Metro that got 106 mpg. Drop me an email, demorro@gmail.com, and we’ll see if we can’t put something together.
- James Wilson
  
  Okay, the issue of “let’s say most car’s advertised on the tv boasting about 40 mpg and not diesel hybrid and this care is as you say “146 mpg” ” is a huge effort for HIGH SCHOOL KIDS OUT OF WEST PHILLY!!! is a huge effort. And you don’t have to get energy from coal (and I know from Ohio the State with the most coal plants) you can get the energy from solar, wind, etc. It shocks me to hear from people talking so negative about the effort that these HIGH SCHOOL KIDS did and how we need to utilize bio-diesel hybrid technology that charges batteries with solar and wind instead of talking how bad the idea is……. Let’s give credit for the effort and acknowledge the solutions and put to shame the industries that keep polluting our environment….
http://Web Bob voll

Thank you for giving me a chance to explain further. You are correct in that the original figure for the West Philly Team was 160 mpg. After the officials revived from their initial shock they posted the final results, correct to the best of their knowledge, also on the GGP site, here: http://www.greengrandprix.com/rally%20score%20sheet2011.pdf
http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/ NeilBlanchard

This is a hybrid, and it probably has a plugin charger. Did they account for the electricity used? Even with the electricity, it is quite possible for them to get ~143MPG. And did they do MPGe calculations — i.e. did they normalize like the X-Prize did? Diesel has about 20% more energy than does gasoline (E10).

It’s only a guess, but maybe Bob Voll is related to George Voll, who was also a competitor in the X-Prize? George’s car was a diesel.

Full disclosure: I was a guest member of the Edison2 team during the Knockout Round,, and I have seen most of the cars that were there up close, and found out what I could about all of them. I am designing my own full electric 5-seat car called CarBEN EV. (see my blog)

Neil
- http://Web bob voll
  
  Hi Neil,
  
  I’d like to see your 5-seat electric car. We need more people who are interested in designing cars that get better mileage. After all, many experts believe our fossil fuels are being rapidly used up.
  
  What I’m concerned with in these economy competitions is that they are run fair and square. To say that a car is getting some fantastic mileage, yet a good portion of the fuel burned to reach the finish line may not be counted and this should concern all of us. It takes fuel to charge a battery pack. How much coal does it take? I really don’t know, but I do know that it probably takes quite a bit. It would be nice to know, wouldn’t it?
  
  And doesn’t it seem a bit strange that we have been led down the path of miles per gallon “equivalent”? If someone is chasing me and I have to get away from them it seems important to know that my car could go 100 miles actual instead of perhaps 68 or so. So, which would you prefer, a car that gets a true 100 miles per gallon or a car that gets 68 actual miles per gallon and 32 imaginary miles per gallon?
  
  Suppose I had a car that ran off of compressed air, and suppose it could go 50 miles before it had to be recharged with more compressed air? Wouldn’t it be essential to know how much fuel went into compressing the air in the first place if my compressed air car was to run a race against any other type of car? Not to state fairly that it took a gallon of gasoline to compress the air that powered my car is similar to what we seem to have with electric cars today. It’s obvious that it takes some fuel to power the generators that would charge a battery pack. So, how much would it take? And why would it be more efficient than any other car that took a similar amount of fuel to travel the same distance?
  
  At least that’s the way it seems to me.
  
  BTW, Have you ever heard of the notorious bank robber, Samuel Blanchard? He was very famous in the 19th Century.
  
  bob voll
http://Web bob voll

Why not have a metric of miles-per-pound-of-coal for electric-powered vehicles? An honest comparison could then be made with miles-per-gallon by comparing the BTU content of pounds of coal to the BTU content of gasoline or diesel fuel. We can discuss the emissions differences later.
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