It doesn’t have to be green to be fuel-efficient
Cal State L.A.’s Super Eagle II is the best-looking supermileage vehicle
Los Angeles, CA – What’s yellow and black, sleek and stylish, and can travel up to 853 miles on one gallon of gas? It’s Cal State L.A.’s student-built supermileage vehicle, the new Super Eagle II, which was named Best Looking Vehicle at the recent Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Supermileage® competition in Marshall, Michigan.
The aerodynamic Super Eagle II, with a carbon-fiber body and frame painted in Cal State L.A.’s Golden Eagle colors, weighs 80 to 90 pounds and runs on a modified fuel-injected Briggs & Stratton engine.
Placing seventh out of 19 college entries in the overall competition, the Super Eagle II was built and designed by the following core of Cal State L.A. students: Raul Frank Almeida, mechanical engineering major (Diamond Bar resident);
Bernardo Chavez, mechanical engineering major (Maywood resident);
Michael Choi, mechanical engineering major (Torrance resident);
Tommy Jiang, electrical engineering major (Los Angeles resident);
Mary Kiley, biochemistry major (Eagle Rock resident);
Neil Lau, manufacturing engineering major (Monterey Park resident);
Chris Reid, team captain and mechanical engineering major (Alhambra resident),
Francisco Requeno Jr., mechanical engineering major (Compton resident);
Samuel Samoya, management major (Torrance resident);
Jinkang Tan, civil engineering major (Los Angeles resident);
Eric Younger, mechanical engineering major (Los Angeles resident);
Wenru (Raymond) Wu, mechanical engineering major (Los Angeles resident); and Tina Yu, civil engineering major (Los Angeles resident).
In 2004, the original Super Eagle outlasted 39 other entries from the U.S. and Canada in the SAE international Supermileage® competition, achieving a record 1,615 mpg.
The Supermileage® competition challenges engineering and technology students to develop and construct a single-person, fuel-efficient vehicle. The vehicles run a specified course, and the vehicle obtaining the highest combined kilometers per liter (miles per gallon) rating plus design segment points wins the event. Students try to set a world-fuel economy record and also increase public awareness of fuel economy.
For more information, call Virgil Seaman, faculty advisor for the Super Eagle II team, at (323) 343-4550.
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Working for California since 1947: The 175-acre hilltop campus of California State University, Los Angeles is at the heart of a major metropolitan city, just five miles from Los Angeles’ civic and cultural center. More than 20,000 students and 205,000 alumni—with a wide variety of interests, ages and backgrounds—reflect the city’s dynamic mix of populations. Six colleges offer nationally recognized science, arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education and humanities programs, among others, led by an award-winning faculty. Cal State L.A. is home to the critically-acclaimed Luckman Jazz Orchestra and to a unique university center for gifted students as young as 12. Programs that provide exciting enrichment opportunities to students and community include an NEH- and Rockefeller-supported humanities center; a NASA-funded center for space research; and a growing forensic science program, housed in the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center. www.calstatela.edu