Ran across this little news article...

http://news.com.com/Ethanol+car+wins...ht&tag=nl.e433

and for those of you who don't like long urls...

http://tinyurl.com/fjblk

and for those of you who don't like url tags, here is the article (sans
photo)...

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Article
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Ethanol car wins fuel efficiency challenge
By Candace Lombardi
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Published: May 22, 2006, 12:06 PM PDT

How far can you go on a tank of ethanol? Some students in France this
weekend showed that the answer could be in the thousands of miles.

That is, of course, if you don't mind driving a car not much bigger than you
are.

An ethanol-powered vehicle engineered by students from the Lycee La
Joliverie took top honors at the Shell Eco-marathon, a contest to build a
car that can drive as far as possible using the least amount of energy.

The vehicle averaged an astounding 2,885 kilometers per liter, or
approximately 6,786 miles per gallon, according to an announcement released
Sunday by race officials.

While the car did not break last year's record of 9,023 mpg, it was
significant in that it was an ethanol-powered vehicle. Hydrogen-powered
vehicles, which were predicted to win early on in the race, became
runners-up.

The ESSTIN-Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy team, also from France, took second place
with their hydrogen-powered vehicle, which traveled at 6,548 mpg. France's
Polytech Nantes-La Joliverie took third place, with 6,421 mpg. Another
hydrogen-powered car, entered by the German Hochschule Offenburg team, came
in at No. 4 with 6,148 mpg.

This year's Shell Eco-marathon took place on the Nogaro circuit in southwest
France. More than 3,000 students, representing 250 European educational
institutions, participated in the event. Eight teams managed to break the
4,704 mpg barrier.

Other awards were distributed for design. The Eco-Design award, which takes
into account the materials and energy used to produce a car, went to the
ENSIETA (Ecole Nationale Supereure d'Ingenieurs) Brest team for its
bamboo-and-metal chassis, covered in paper.

The Lycee Gustave Eiffel de Talange team won first place in the
Social/Hospitality Award category. The high-school students chose to tackle
the subject of sexually transmitted disease by linking car safety and sexual
safety with their condom-shaped vehicle.

The race, which aims to raise energy awareness, is also under the patronage
of European Union Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs.