The Geec

The Geec

NUI Galway Mechanical Engineering, along with Electrical & Electronic Engineering, is the home of the Galway energy-efficient car - the Geec - designed, built and raced by our students.

In 2017, a team of undergraduate students, with the support of teaching staff, designed and built the third version of the Geec. They competed against 176 other eco-cars from 26 countires at Shell Eco-marathon Europe in London  - a race where the winner is not the fastest car, but the one that use the least fuel or energy to complete a 16-km street circuit. The Geec achieved a massive energy-efficiency score of 354 kilometres per kilowatt-hour to finish 13^th of 41 competitors in the battery-electric prototype class. How good is that? It's equivalent to over 10,000 miles per gallon of diesel, 140 times better than most cars on the road. To put it another way, the Geec 3.0 is efficient enought to drive from Galway to Dublin for less than 10 cents' worth of electricity. This score shattered our own previous record of 287 km/kWh, set on the much easier Rotterdam 2015 circuit.

The Geec challenges students to develop a complex innovative engineering system and manage the business structure that supports it, all in an atmosphere of intense (but friendly!) competition . For many of the students, their contribution to the design, build and test of the Geec is part of their course in Mechanical, Energy Systems, Electrical & Electronic, or Electronic & Computer Engineering.

This is just the beginning. The 2017 team have proven that NUI Galway engineers are as good as the world's best. We've already started work on the Geec 4.0 to go onwards and upwards at SEM Europe 2018 in London. Would you like to create one of the world's most advanced eco-cars? Your first step is to study Mechanical Engineering at NUI Galway. (Or Energy Systems, Electrical and Electronic, or Electronic and Computer - it's a matter of taste!) You can find out more about the Geec on www.theGeec.ie, and follow the news on facebook or @theGeec.

The Geec has been generously sponsored in 2016/17 by the Tony Ryan Trust through the Galway University Foundation, Shell E&P Ireland, Blackstone Launchpad, ÉireComposites, CADFEM UK & Ireland, ANSYS, Molex, GE, Tool Trays, David Nestor Freight Services, Enform Plastics, MathWorks, and IPG Automotive. The team is actively seeking new partners for 2016, and inquiries are welcome at info@theGeec.ie.