Team Green Mecc from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano achieved an outstanding result at the Shell Eco-marathon Europe 2026, held at the Silesia Ring in Poland, once again demonstrating its excellence in the field of sustainable mobility and energy-efficient vehicle design.
The team competed with Ἔρως, a brand-new vehicle entirely designed, developed, and built by the students. In its debut race, Eros secured third place in the Urban Concept Battery Electric category, achieving an impressive energy efficiency of 260 km/kWh. This remarkable performance reflects the team's commitment to innovation, engineering excellence, and continuous optimization.
Ἔρως embodies a significant technological advancement over the team's previous vehicles. One of its key features is a fully composite monocoque chassis, designed to reduce weight while increasing structural stiffness and overall vehicle performance. The vehicle is powered by a Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM), optimized to maximize the efficiency.
In addition to its podium finish, Team Green Mecc was awarded second place in the Innovation Award, recognizing the team's development of an innovative aerodynamic solution based on vortex generators integrated into the vehicle underbody. This technology improves airflow management beneath the car, contributing to enhanced aerodynamic efficiency and overall performance.
The 2026 edition of the Shell Eco-marathon presented particularly demanding conditions. Throughout the competition, ambient temperatures exceeded 40°C, creating significant challenges for both the team and the vehicle. The extreme heat affected component performance while requiring students to work under physically demanding conditions during vehicle preparation, maintenance, and continuous setup adjustments between runs. Despite these difficulties, the team demonstrated outstanding resilience, technical expertise, and teamwork, successfully adapting to the challenging environment.
The success achieved in Poland extended well beyond the on-track competition. Thanks to its excellent overall performance, combining strong race results with outstanding achievements in the Off-Track Awards, Team Green Mecc has been selected from the six European teams to compete in the Shell Eco-marathon Global Championship 2027, which will be held in Qatar. The event will bring together the top-performing university teams from the European, Asian, and American regional competitions, offering Team Green Mecc the opportunity to compete against the world's best.
This achievement is the result of months of dedicated work involving students, PhD candidates, faculty members, and researchers from the Department of Mechanical Engineering. From conceptual design and numerical simulations to manufacturing, testing, and track validation, every stage of the project provided valuable hands-on experience and strengthened the students' engineering skills in a highly multidisciplinary environment.
Both the podium finish and the Innovation Award highlight the quality of the work carried out by Team Green Mecc and reaffirm the Department of Mechanical Engineering's commitment to educating future engineers while advancing innovative solutions for sustainable mobility.
