•UK university wins Europe Shell Eco Marathon as Nigerian team prepares for African/Middle East version in Qatar

NIGERIAN engineers have promised to deliver a near 100 per cent environment-friendly, fuel-efficient car before the first Africa/Middle East version of the Shell Eco Marathon scheduled for Doha, Qatar in November 2014.

The Nigerian team of engineers made up of students and their professors from University of Lagos (UNILAG); University of Benin (UNIBEN), Edo State; and Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria, Kaduna State have promised to design, build and test ultra energy-efficient and environment-friendly vehicles.

The quest is under the auspices of the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) on behalf of Shell Companies in Nigeria (SEPCiN).

Indeed, in what would be a debut entry for sub-Saharan Africa at the Shell Eco Marathon, three student teams from three Nigerian universities have begun preparation to compete at the 2014 event in Qatar.

Representatives from each team accompanied by their team managers were at the Shell Eco-Marathon in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, from May 15 to 19 on a learning visit to acquire knowledge from participating entrants at the event.

The Guardian who covered the visit reported that the six Nigerian students and their professors/team managers had a full week of activities lined-up.

This included a meet and greet with Shell’s Upstream International Director, Andy Brown, a welcome reception by the Nigerian Ambassador to the Netherlands, Mrs. Nimota Nihinlola Akanbi, a learning session with the Technical University of Delft (a Shell Eco-Marathon veteran participant) and a walk-through the paddocks and technical inspection process with Norman Koch, the Shell Eco-marathon Technology Manager & Student Liaison.

The students also visited the Shell Technology Centre in Amsterdam (STCA), in company of Internal Relations Manager, Shell Nigeria, Mrs. Sola Abulu, where they learnt about the innovation funnel and how it applies to their task ahead at the Shell Eco-Marathon.

Shell Eco-marathon challenges student teams from around the world to design, build and test ultra energy-efficient vehicles. With yearly events first in the Americas, then Europe and Asia, the winners are the teams that go the furthest using the least amount of energy. The events spark debate about the future of mobility and inspire young engineers to push the boundaries of fuel efficiency.

A member of the Nigerian team of engineers and a mechanical engineer from the ABU, Dr. Mohammed Dauda, told The Guardian: “Indeed we can link up the Shell Eco-Marathon to the quest for competitive made in Nigeria car. We went to Rotterdam as observers to the 2013 Shell Eco-Marathon for Europe but we are going to participate in Shell Eco-Marathon for Middle East and Africa holding next year in Doha, Qatar.

“We can link it up because when we participate next year, remember this event is tailored at producing a highly energy efficient car both prototype and sub-urban concept. So all the parts that will be used in making this highly energy efficient car will be fed into our Nigeria car project. So in essence, participating in Eco-Marathon will help us make a highly energy efficient and sophisticated car.

“I am sorry I will not go into specific percentage. What I agree with is that Nigeria will be able to make a highly energy efficient car. Remember sometimes because of the economics it will make it cheap when it comes to Nigeria. We might adapt some technologies rather than say we will simply make all of it because it may increase the cost. But what I am assuring you is that we will be able to make car in Nigeria. But when you say 90 per cent, it means all the 90 per cent of the materials and inputs will be sourced locally. That I am not sure because we do not have the empirical evidence to show you as it is now.”

A professor of Manufacturing Engineering at UNIBEN, Akaehomen O. Akii Ibhadode, said: “We are here to observe the Eco Marathon that is taking place in Rotterdam this year in preparation for our competition that will take place in Qatar in November 2014. Our expectation is that when we get back home from this Eco Marathon in Rotterdam, we are going to put our acts together in preparation of the Eco Marathon that will take place in Qatar next year.

“What we are looking at is that we are not looking at just competing but far beyond that in coming out with a made in Nigeria car, which will form the basis of Nigeria made car. That is our focus. We are going there to participate, make our mark and beyond that we are hoping that this will be the pioneer effort in getting this dream called the Nigerian car.

“Judging from the work we have done previously and the one we have doing now concerning the World Bank sponsored project on the making of engine parts, developing local skills in making of engine parts, we are hoping that at the end of this process we will be able to put together almost a 100 per cent made in Nigeria car.”

Prof. Ike Mowete of the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, UNILAG, said: “A lot goes into building a made in Nigeria car. There are quite a few opportunities that are open to us if you look at it from various dimensions. Take the electrical system for example, how do you design a battery management system that will significantly reduce the way the car consume fuel or energy. How do you design a breaking system that contributes to the entire vehicles fuel efficiency, which has the aesthetics the wiper, the lighting systems, dash-boards.

“There are quite a few opportunities open to our students. More importantly let them now go from drawing board to hard ware. We will design and try to implement in hard ware and see that in doing so that each time we are conscious of the larger objective of building a fuel efficient car. Fortunately for now we are not looking at the engine, in my own team for example we are focusing on the electric vehicle. And there are quite a few opportunities for that. I can see now on paper that when we now get going we begin to see many things that will be open.

“Many researchers on campus have shown interest in various forms. Some on Information Technology (IT), how will they their ITR skills to contribute. We have interviewed them. Some we have finished interviewing and we have made them part of the team based on the interview performance.

“So it will be unfolding gradually. Certainly it will contribute to the eventual made in Nigeria car because now we are localizing talents, we are building local capacities. I am sure at some points we will have the critical mass necessary for us to begin to move from there.”

Meanwhile, a team from Oxford University won the Technical Innovation Award at this year’s Shell Eco-marathon Europe, beating teams from 24 other countries to take home one of the event’s most coveted prizes.

One of eight off-track awards, it is presented to the team demonstrating outstanding initiative and technical ingenuity.

Oxford’s prototype electric car, ‘PEGGIE’, weighs just 30kg and incorporates three new innovations.

One is a mobile phone application that reports to the driver in real time how efficiently ‘she’ is being driven, so that the driver can correct their behaviour if she goes outside the ‘green’ zone.

The team also installed a reconfigurable photovoltaic (PV) array made up of 130 monocrystalline PV cells which dynamically rewire themselves as the vehicle goes round the track. The drive train is also made with exotic materials to improve gear efficiency. PEGGIE finished seventh overall in her category.

External Communications Manager (CX) African Cluster, Shell Nigeria, Phillip Mshelbila, at a reception organized for the Nigerian team of engineers preparing for the Qatar meet said: “It is opportunity to put Nigeria on the map. You will concentrate on your design to build, test and actually race this car next year. I call it Eco Marathon challenge. So we have to conquer this challenge and win. We are looking forward to the team Nigeria coming back with the prize; to build a car that can take you the farthest distance with the least fuel.

“It also gives us the opportunity with a Nigerian automobile. See how far India and Brazil have achieved. We see this as an opportunity as well to rekindle that flame in Nigeria to develop a Nigerian car despite these challenges. Our support is to enable this process to go forward and bring this into the consciousness of Nigerians.

“Our national pride and also our place in Africa and the world is at stake. It is not good enough to put a car together but it must compete and there is need for creativity and something unique.”

The Nigerian team includes: professors of engineering and outstanding engineering students from UNILAG, UNIBEN and ABU.

The UNILAG team is led by Mowete of the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering and two of his best students: Obinna Stanley Agba aged 20 and Abraham J. Imohiosen aged 21.

The team from UNIBEN include: Ibhadode and his students: Adetunji A. Taj-Liad aged 22 and Adekola B. Adeyemi 21, while the ABU team include Dauda of the Mechanical Engineering Department and his students: Bartholomew Njoku aged 23 and Yusuf Sadiq aged 21.

Dauda said the optimism for a 100 per cent made in Nigeria car started as part of the Centre for Automotive Design and Development (CADD). The ABU don explained: “It started as a project called three wheel project, which was started by one of the military regimes I think Ibrahim Babangida administration. So after the three-wheel project was completed which essentially it was tasked with looking at the possibility or feasibility of making a Nigerian car. So when it completed its work then the military administration went ahead to set up CADD and domiciled it in ABU, which was headed by Prof. Clement Folayan who was then our Head of Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Dean of Engineering ABU, Zaria.

“So the detailed work which they started by producing a three wheel vehicle tailored after the India three wheel vehicle. That was the initial prototype they developed.

After that they developed two more four-wheel vehicles, which indeed toured Nigeria. It drove all over the country and ended in Abuja where they presented it to the Minister of Science and Technology then. So this project was divided into phases. The second to the last demonstrated that essentially that a Nigeria car could be made and which as made and demonstrated its capacity of being driven. Prof. Folayan achieved that by driving all over the country. It was subsequently presented to the then President, Shonekan.

“The last part of the project was presenting this report: the technical design, the financial analysis, which is the economic analysis to the business community, what they call a stakeholder conference. In that forum, the stakeholders conference, is supposed to present a made in Nigeria car, a functioning made in Nigeria car to the business community and start the process of commercialising it, which essentially involves setting up a factory by the business community to start the Nigerian car. So that was where we were, it never happened.”

“During the Obasanjo administration he actually sadly dissolved the CADD and brought that function under the National Automotive Council. So as we are now, that function is supposed to be under the National Automotive Council but sadly the business community has not shown interest in developing that. The whole of these activities happened about 2002.”

Dauda said a lot of research activity has gone into automotive parts in all the Nigerian universities, a decade after the CADD was scrapped, and assured that with the research output that can be pooled from the Nigerian universities the team is capable of making even a better car than the one developed by CADD.

He, however, called on the government to please facilitate it. “Perhaps if the business community is not interested in developing it, government must provide seed money for the school to now build a pilot plant for the production of the made in Nigeria car, then that will in essence be demonstrated to the business community that is a viable venture and they may buy in. That is how all the countries that have built cars started,” Dauda said.

He added: “Although the CADD has been closed and its function has been merged with the National Automotive Council. But I assure on the ground at ABU we have facilities on ground that will make us achieve that easily because the University has made its own investment in the automotive engineering sector of mechanical engineering. So I am assuring you that as a research we will need modern facilities. Remember the Centre was built so many years ago and the machine we use in making so many of these tools are quite old. Yes we want Shell to assist us by providing some of these modern machine tools like Computer Numerically Control (CNC), lead and milling machines, which will essentially make us produce parts with high dimensional tolerances. But after having this I assure you we will be able to produce a better car than the one that was produced by the CADD.”
Source: Guardian News Paper
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=123059:engineers-promise-100-made-in-nigeria-car-by-november-2014&catid=93:science&Itemid=608

I hope it work for one week, also the engine need to be Nigerian made not imported. We should start from bicycle first before the car talk. Another vision 2020.

Lol. We are waiting and watching...as usual.