Supermileage masters

Most people can only dream of having a motor vehicle that would get 765 mpg.

But two students at Bowler High School found a way to make that happen.

The school has been part of the Wisconsin Energy Efficient Vehicle Association for the last four years. This year nine students worked on experimental vehicles that could run on either fuel or electricity as part of the association’s Supermileage Challenge.

After researching vehicle designs, internal combustion engines and powertrain systems, the students designed four single-person vehicles that could travel several hundred miles on either electricity or a gallon of fuel.

A vehicle designed by seniors Jared Rickert and Jarred Boswell blew away the competition, improving the vehicle’s initial performance from 200 mpg to 765.

“I couldn’t believe it had jumped that high,” Rickert said. “Previously, we had practiced and we had been getting 200-some (miles per gallon). Then we started toying around with stuff, but I didn’t think we’d get that big a jump. The goal was to hit 300, but we blew past that.”

Bowler’s Supermileage program has earned about 30 awards in four years. However, most of the vehicles were only able to reach a maximum efficiency of 300 miles per gallon, so the red car reaching 765 miles per gallon is an “unbelievable” achievement, said Tim Ploeger, Bowler’s technical education teacher.

Rickert believes he and Boswell hit the sweet spot on aligning the car’s tires, noting that being off even an inch hurts the car’s ability to coast. The students also tweaked the clutch and used a smaller engine.

Rickert and Boswell studied what worked in vehicles at previous Supermileage Challenges to determine if those successes could be adapted to their design. The frame was made of PVC pipe, while the rest of the vehicle was built with steel, and the Honda stock engine used was similar to one that was in a vehicle that won in competitions last year.

The two spent close to 300 hours working on the vehicle.

“You just get to build it yourself and then run it yourself,” Boswell said. “It’s something you’re real proud of, and when you succeed, you’re elated about it. Everything you can do can either be crappy or really well made.”

Ploeger said Supermileage vehicles have to travel a minimum of 8 miles in competitions. Once the run is completed, the remaining fuel is checked to determine the efficiency rate.

When one of his students told him at a contest at Fox Valley Technical College in April that Rickert and Boswell’s red car had a peak rate of 765 mpg and an average of 717, Ploeger was skeptical. The same car was reported in the 600 mpg range at a previous competition, but was really hovering near 400 mpg after a miscalculation was discovered.

Later on, though, a judge informed Ploeger that the car had indeed reached the higher benchmark and was more than 200 mpg higher than the nearest competitor, a vehicle from Barneveld that averaged 526 mpg.

The Bowler Supermileage car also won in the open stock category at a competition held May 9-10 at Road America in Elkhart Lake, although the fuel efficiency in that contest was estimated to be 594 mpg.

Fuel efficiency is only one aspect of the competition. Ploeger said the vehicles must navigate around orange cones and are tested for braking efficiency. Students must also submit information that outlines how the teams designed and built their Supermileage vehicles.

Students also had to go out into the community and get sponsors to pay for the vehicle construction materials.

As for Rickert and Boswell, “I don’t think they could have done it much better than what they did,” Ploeger said.