Many engineering students, like Matthias Jungbluth of Fachhochschule (The University of Applied Sciences) Trier  in Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany, are attracted to a project like Shell Eco-marathon by the hands-on experience involved in designing and building a fuel-efficient car.

The Trier school’s team, called team ProTRon (a combination of the word “protype” and the abbreviation for the city name, Trier) wanted the number 701 for its battery electric urban concept vehicle, Jungbluth said. That’s because the number “7” stands for the class of battery the car uses and the “1” stands for  the first place the team took Eco-Marathon 2011, with a result of 233 kilometers (145 miles) per kilowatthour. Because 1 gallon of gasoline delivers the same energy as 33.7