The SZEnergy Team, the student team of Széchenyi István University developing electric vehicles took first places in Europe’s biggest energy efficiency competition ahead of the continent’s most prestigious universities in autonomous and the urban concept categories, beating their own last year’s world record in the latter category. The result shows the high quality of both practice-oriented trainings and talent management at the institution in Győr.

Last June, the SZEnergy Team, the student team of Széchenyi István University achieved the greatest success of their history when they won the Shell Eco-Marathon for European and African teams in the urban concept category in Assen, the Netherlands, with a world record with an energy balance of 284 kilometres / kilowatt hour. The success continued in July, at the Paul Armagnac race track in Nogaro, France with a second place in the autonomous, that is self-driving category of the competition series.

This year both categories of the Shell Eco-marathon were organised in Nogaro, partly parallel, between 19 and 25 May.

The SZEnergy Team, the only Hungarian participant set two first places in the extremely strong field as their goal, and lived up to expectations to win both categories. Furthermore, they set a new world record of 291 kilometres per kilowatt hour in the urban concept category.

(It means that the electrical vehicle from Győr covered the designated distance with such low consumption that it would have covered 291 kilometres using 1 kilowatt hour, which is the equivalent of two hours of ironing.) The value of this success is enhanced by the fact that renowned universities such as the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the Polytechnic Universities of Turin, Milan, Munich, Toulouse, Athens and the University of Applied Sciences in Amsterdam were behind the team of Széchenyi István University.

There was huge happiness: the SZEnergy Team came first in two categories. (Photo: Dudás Máté)

Mesics Mátyás, a member of the autonomous section of the SZEnergy Team, said that in the autonomous category there were three tasks to be completed. First the vehicle drove along a 1.2 kilometre stretch of track, then it navigated through a sector of obstacles with buoys, finally it parked next to two cars in the only free space - all in self-driving mode, without human intervention. “It was an additional challenge that the tasks had to be completed continuously, one after the other, so that the car stopped at the stop line and then started moving again”, Mesics Mátyás added.

The car of the SZEnergy Team stood out from the field. (Photo: Dudás Máté)

“Our students and PhD students developed own new algorithms in the field of environment detection based on last year’s racing experiences. Uniquely in the field, they used camera images and LIDAR - that is laser-based remote sensing - data to determine the driveable road surface and obstacles. As the vehicle had to compete in two events, it was important that it could be rebuilt in a short time. The members of the team’s autonomous section worked night and day to make the final touches on the programmes, so we completed the first two tasks in the first attempts on the day of the race.”, Kőrös Péter, operative leader of the Autonomous Transport Systems Centre of the Vehicle Industry Research Centre of Széchenyi István University explained.

The car of the student team of Széchenyi István University in the race track in Nogaro. (Photo: Dudás Máté)

The SZEnergy Team arrived in France as defending champion in the urban concept category, so everybody knew that they had a chance to win this year as well, but even the members found the result surprising.

“We did not expect a new world record, mainly because the Nogaro circuit has bigger differences in levels than the Assen circuit, so it is more difficult to achieve low consumption. Our rivals could not improve their previous year’s performances, but we could. This was due to the fact that, although our car was built on last year’s basis, we were able to go beyond the changes to comply with the racing rules and further improve the electronic system, the spring struts or the driving cycle optimisation that determines the driving strategy. Moreover, thanks to our proprietary telemetry we were able to monitor the vehicle and the driver during the race.”, said Pusztai Zoltán, a PhD student of Széchenyi István University, the mentor of the team.

“Congratulations to all the members of the SZEnergy Team who once again proved that our university’s practice-oriented trainings and talent management system are outstanding at an international level as well. Another factor contributing to our success is that in addition to our European-standard infrastructure in Győr, our foundation owns ZalaZONE, one of the world's most modern automotive test tracks, which is also a bastion for our student teams and helps them to maintain their leading position”, dr. Filep Bálint, President of Széchenyi István University emphasised.

“The world-class success of the SZEnergy Team is also significant in terms of the Hungarian Auto-Motorsport Development Strategy adopted by the government. Our objective is to position and strengthen Hungary’s role in the era of transformational mobility as effectively as possible, and at the same time to move to the forefront of developments related to electric car racing and other electromobility developments in Europe. As automotive and motorsports are the cradle of innovations in everyday transportation, seeing the results, there is good chance that it will be in Győr, the Hungarian capital of the automotive industry that our engineers will develop a solution pioneering in the industry, even on a global scale”, Weingartner Balázs, chairman-CEO of HUMDA Hungarian Motorsport and Green Mobility Development Agency emphasized.