Mechanical engineering students at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) have been participating in  Shell Eco-marathon Americas (SEMA) since its inaugural year in 2007. Since then, our team has built five prototype-class vehicles, with a top fuel efficiency of 858 miles per gallon (365 kilometers per liter).

Each new vehicle our team creates incorporates design improvements over our previous vehicles. Our most recently built vehicle for the 2011 SEMA event has electronic fuel injection (EFI) and a lightweight carbon fiber frame structure. This vehicle will be re-entered in the upcoming 2012 SEMA, but will incorporate more advanced EFI tuning methods and significant reductions in the overall vehicle and aerodynamic drag. Our team is also currently building a plug-in electric urban-class vehicle that will