A team of students from the University of Newcastle’s Electrical Engineering program have found success in the recent Hunter Valley Electric Vehicle Festival’s EV Prize contest.

The contest is part of the Hunter Valley Electric Vehicle festival, an initiative of the Tom Farrell Institute to stimulate development of forward thinking and innovative transport within the Hunter.

The team, consisting of third year students Andreas Antoniades and Francisco Gordin, raced their electric car in the Demonstrator Division, trouncing the competition to take out best performing vehicle of the event.

Driven by Antoniades, the car made it through 20 laps with a fastest lap time of 1 minute 39 seconds, and average top speed of 38.4km/h, a result the team were extremely pleased with. "It was a great experience for us," Antoniades said. "Lots of work and long, long hours, but it’s definitely been worth it".

The team was brought onto the project after the University and Tom Farrell Institute sought to place a team in the contest. Over the course of the semester, the team started big but was quickly whittled down by other commitments, but that didn’t deter Antoniades and Gordin.

Making do with a chassis reused from a previous electric vehicle, the car was built over a number of months and served as a trial for future participation. "We’d love to have a bigger team next year and take the project to a new level" Antoniades said. "We’ll be able to build on the awesome results of this year, and with a few more students and a lot more time we think we’ll be even more successful."

The pair was extremely successful on the day - in addition to their win in the Demonstrator Division they were the second fastest team of the day.

The team is calling for new volunteers for next year’s competition. Any interested students should contact Colin Coates.