College projects are usually about late submissions, fried circuits, and team meetings that somehow turn into chai breaks. But back in my SRM days, I somehow ended up in a team that wanted to change the world - one drop of petrol at a time.
Welcome to Infieon Supermileage, where we didn’t build a race car… we built a fuel-efficiency ninja.

The Mission: Go Far, Very Far

While other teams were chasing horsepower, we were chasing kilometers per litre.
Our target? Make a car so efficient it could make a scooter jealous.
And with Shell Eco-Marathon around the corner, we had just one goal: break some records (and maybe a few tools along the way).

My Role: Powertrain Head

I was the Powertrain Head, a fancy title that basically meant, “Make it move… efficiently.”
So I designed a reverse clutch mechanism - a manual system to disengage the drivetrain and let the car coast freely.
In simple words: hit the clutch, kill the drag, and let the vehicle do the work.
It became our secret “kill-and-coast” weapon, and trust me, it worked like magic.

The Car That Could

Under the hood (well, sort of), we had a Honda GY-6 50cc engine paired with a hybrid system.
We tweaked every detail - from the 0.105 drag coefficient to the 0.32 m² frontal area - until the car looked like a metallic tadpole that meant business.
The result? A whopping 142.8 km per litre.
Yep, you read that right. One litre. One hundred forty-two point eight kilometres. Even my bike cried a little.

Race Day: Sweat, Stress, and Sweet Victory

The competition was held at Shell India Markets Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore, and against all odds (and questionable sleep schedules), we pulled it off.
We finished as Runner-ups and even snagged the Communication Award.
Not bad for a bunch of students who spent half their time arguing over clutch cables and lunch menus.

The Takeaway

That project taught me a lot - about engineering, teamwork, and how much mileage you can get when you mix caffeine with innovation.
Infieon Supermileage wasn’t just about fuel economy; it was about proving that great ideas can run on almost nothing… except determination (and maybe filter coffee).