Tomorrow’s drive

Yes, Fledge’s makers look like they have only recently put away their Enid Blytons. The septet of budding mechanical engineers—Abhinav Bhatia, Abhinav Duggal, Abhishek Agarwal, Anubhav Jain, Ashish Dudani, Nitesh Gupta and Siddharth Arora—are sixth semester students at the Delhi College of Engineering. Their project reflects the growing interest in alternative technology in a world that is increasingly conscious of depleting organic energy sources and environmental pollution. The cost of energy is also concern. As Agarwal, team leader of the DCE group, said, ‘‘The mounting burden of petrol prices on the common man kindled a spark in us. So we worked on this new technology with a revolutionary drive train.’’ The drive train has been specially configures to give maximum efficiency and economy.

A hybrid vehicle is a dual-power car that combines a battery-powered electric motor with the power of a petrol engine. The engine is usually lighter than in conventional cars to help reduce polluting emissions.

Step inside the single-seater Fledge and you will notice the steering wheel is centrally located. Turn on the ignition the 18 BHP, 346cc engine derived from the Enfield Bullet bike noiselessly primes for operation. The car starts in the engine mode and then shifts to motor mode when required. Fledge uses a 200 Ampere-hour lead acid battery and the fuel tank has a capacity of 13 litres. The car’s mileage in petrol mode is around 25 km/litre. There is a switch conversion mechanism that gives the user the option to use either the petrol engine or the battery motor. When the car is in the engine mode then it runs like any other conventional automobile—except that somewhere within the electric current supply from the batteries to the motor has switched off. The car has the usual four gears. But when the car is being run by the motor, the gears slip into neutral.

‘‘The Fledge is ideal for urban conditions as it has near zero emission and uses a customised drive train which makes the car’s components less complex and more efficient,’’ said Gupta, team member, adding the vehicle would be affordable for the masses were it to be commercially produced. Besides, Fledge—whose student-inventors were supported by automakers Mahindra and Mahindra and the Central government’s Department of Science and Technology—could be the ecofriendly solution to vehicular pollution.

‘‘The Fledge can run for 100 km on the battery after being charged overnight,’’ said Gupta. That will be useful in the Tour de Sol. There the teams have to decrease the use of fuel by increasing vehicle efficiency—by either making the cars lighter and/or building a hybrid or electric vehicle. They also have to switch from petrol to some other fuel that does not emit as much carbon, even when the full fuel cycle, from production to consumption, is taken into account.

Competitors in this event are St Mark’s School from Southboro, Massachusetts, with a solar- and battery-powered electric pickup truck and a biodiesel vehicle, and West Philadelphia High School, Pennsylvania, with a biodiesel car. All are working towards a cleaner, happier, unsullied world—like the one peopled by Enid Blyton’s elves and pixies.