In May, the SZEnergy Team closed the Shell-Eco Marathon season with a double victory, winning both the energy efficiency and autonomous categories and breaking its own previous world record. The Széchenyi István University team has set the bar again, now even higher than usual with the goal for next year nothing less than a double title, and if possible with yet another world record. They announced their developmental program that they believe is needed to achieve this during their annual design freeze event.
“Winners never hesitate, and those who hesitate will never be winners.”
– said Dr István Lakatos by summing up the spirit that has led to the success of the SZEnergy Team from Győr, during his welcome speech to the team members at their annual design freeze event to present the team’s plans. Dr. István Lakatos is the Head of the Department of Road and Railway Vehicles at Széchenyi István University.
(Photo: András Adorján)
“Every individual or organisation builds a recipe for success from different building blocks. According to Henry Ford, the formula is simple: you must always have the competencies you need at the right moment. This seems obvious, yet it is incredibly difficult to achieve. The SZEnergy Team has reached this level for performance and achievement.”
– also said by the head of the department during his welcome speech. He further went on to say: “It is a big task and a huge responsibility to be the defending champion, you have to be able to manage success, so it is key to stay motivated.”
“Our actions today and within the next six months can still prove to ourselves and others that there is always room to improve, there is always a road to higher ground” said Dr. István Lakatos. (Photo: Máté Dudás)
He was joined by Dr. Ferenc Szauter, Director of the University’s Centre for Automotive Research and founder of the SZEnergy Team, who during his welcoming speech outlined some of the potential new goals the team might be planning to set for itself. In doing this, he asked ChatGPT, the popular artificial intelligence-based chatbot of our time, to outline some possible future strategic success points for the team. Much to his surprise, the team’s members had already ticked off a few of these points suggested by the AI program.
“International success? The answer is yes as we say it with modesty, but in our hearts also with a good level of pride. We should be proud of this achievement as it is known that Western European universities teams are watching us and taking note of what we are up to. Should we establish a start-up? Well, with the participation of former and current team members, a spinoff company called Quatic has already been in existence for over a year now where they focus on the development of electric powertrain systems for go-karts. Are customised training programs needed? The answer is a natural yes as the team itself is a unique educational program, where “students are challenged to do real engineering and this is the best way to learn.” All questions addressed by the program’s director Dr Ferenc Sauter when discussing the teams and the programs milestones achieved.
Dr. Ferenc Szauter also pointed out that the brand “Széchenyi Motorsport” has now been established in the Hungarian and European psyche, this includes the SZEnergy Team and other teams, all of which in total bring together the university’s students who develop and drive racing vehicles under one umbrella. (Photo: Máté Dudás)
During the championship ceremonial speeches, team leader Dávid Krecz shared with the audience what the team forward vision is for this year’s Shell-Eco Marathon. The European race will be held again this year at the end of May on the grounds of the Nogaro circuit in France, where both the energy efficiency and autonomous race, testing self-driving functions, will also take place. In the former race category, two vehicle types will be distinguished: prototype and small city car. While the powertrain for the vehicle being raced can be either internal combustion, electric, or hydrogen fuel cell, the Győr-based vehicle, called SZEmission, will be an electric-powered city car.
Looking back on the results of 2023, the team leader said that they had managed to retain their first place in the energy efficiency race, which they crowned with a new world record. The result of 291 km/kWh means that the car can cover 291 kilometres using only one kilowatt-hour of energy.
It is an interesting fact to note that in 2022, they were only 5 percent better than the second-place car, but this year they are 20 percent better, quadrupling their lead. In addition, the team was able to achieve a double crown during the championships, as the members were able to climb to the top step of the podium in the autonomous event too,following last year’s silver medal category achievement.
The team of Széchenyi István University has worked for many years to reach the top, competing in the urban concept car category since 2013 when the solar class was discontinued. What next, the bar is set so high already? – the question may arise – asks Dávid Krecz. He answers his own question by saying “ we will not give up on winning this year: the aim is to win both categories, and in the energy efficiency race their goal is to topple their new world record by beating their own personal best.”
“Although it may seem that the SZEnergy Team has got the most out of its car, there are still reserves of possible improvement in the vehicle,” points out Balázs Für, head of the team’s engineering development workgroup. During his discussion he goes on to further explain “that even a lower fuel consumption [compared to this year’s achievement] is conceivable.” He says, “that to achieve this improved end goal, the original chassis will be revised, in addition to the realisation of a completely new chassis design prototype, and only afterwards using comparison testing, will it be revealed which chassis will be fitted to the team’s finalised race vehicle.. Other planned improvements included a new drivetrain made from 3D-printed carbon composite instead of machined aluminium parts, which will be much easier to assemble and weigh less.
According to Balázs Für, the measurements show that the car’s drag coefficient is only 0.136, which is significantly lower than even the lowest value of 0.2, a value hardly reached by most cars on the road today. (Photo: Máté Dudás)
Another team member, – István Kecskeméti, head of the team’s electronics workgroup, explains, “the car’s idle power consumption is less than half a watt. This is the amount of power the car consumes after starting up until the engine is running. We can’t reduce this much, so we decided to increase the car’s reliability and safety this year,” a statement which
set out the direction of the electronics workgroup development plan for this year.
István Kecskeméti went on to further divulge his engineering plan by saying, “our battery monitoring system has been working in the car since 2015, and it’s time to replace it. At that time, it was not designed for such heavy loads leading to the device’s frequent replacement over the years. The planned new system will not only be easier to install but will also be able to withstand heavier loads and thus use.” He went on to explain, “there were problems with our telemetry system, which revealed their ugly head this year. For example if the vehicle was hidden behind a physical barrier on the track or was far away the data link was lost and the pit lane would not receive any information about the car for a while which would lead us to improve the system by getting new antennas and rewriting our software.” Finally he noted, as a third important improvement, we are replacing the car’s electronic panel with a more modern, more transparent printed circuit board.”
“In this year’s race, the judges examined our car with a fine toothed comb just to make sure we weren’t hiding any extra energy sources that would make our performance better than the others,” said István Kecskeméti, “they didn’t understand why our car was working so well.” (Photo: Máté Dudás)
One of this year’s developments is the new OLED display panel, which makes it easier for the driver to find his way around (Source: SZEnergy Team)
The developments of the autonomous technology area were presented by Miklós Unger, head of the team’s workgroup, who stressed:“although they managed to win the autonomous category this year, the vehicle’s self-driving system did not always work as planned, there is room for improvement.”
Miklós Unger went on to explain, “we had to complete three tasks this year, one after the other, which confused many teams. We had to get from one point of a non-straight section to another, then we had to avoid obstacles on a straight section, and finally we had to park in an empty parking space. Of these, we failed to complete the parking manoeuvre. The reason for the problem was that our algorithm made the decision based solely on the camera image meaning this year we have to also include the data from the LIDAR laser scanner that scans the environment, which makes the system much more robust.”
“[This year,] in order to give the vehicle better track perception [vision ability], we made hardware upgrades, installing both a new long range camera and a laser scanner. This made our solution less sensitive to different light conditions and allowed us to detect different objects much faster, improving the vehicle’s reaction time and making it more quick,” said Unger.
The vehicle tasks during the autonomous race (Source: SZEnergy Team)
Miklós Unger demonstrated the car’s self-driving capabilities with a video (Photo: Máté Dudás)
Finally, team leader Dávid Krecz presented the results of the marketing and management workgroup, whose efforts were also very successful this year. Thanks to their brilliant performance, the media section has generated one and a half million views, an outstanding number on social media.
Following this year’s successful recruitment phase for the team, it’s headcount has now swelled to nearly half a century (50 members) and is now set up to achieve another world-class performance next May.
Dávid Krecz, team leader, said that they are paying special attention to fulfilling sponsorship contracts (Photo: Máté Dudás)
The design freeze event ended with a sponsorship gratitude ceremony and reception. (Photos: Máté Dudás)
What is a design freeze? – it’s a major event in the life of any engineering design team as it marks the end of the design phase and the start of the manufacturing – prototype construction phase. For years, it has been a tradition to hold a closed invitation event between the two phases to present and inform partners, sponsors, other invited guests, and members of the press about the team’s development trends for the current year.