On October 8, the PSEM (Projeto Sustentabilidade Energética Móvel) Project – a student organisation at Técnico – won the Greenpower International Finals at Goodwood, England, with an electric car – the GP23 – developed in just ten months. The event, which challenges university students to design, build and race an electric car, brought together 115 teams.

The team competes in a F24+ format, aimed at universities and companies, which consists of an hour-long race, with victory going to the team whose car covers the greatest distance. PSEM achieved international first place by winning three of the four races in which it took part (breaking the track records for lap times in two of them). Covering 64.4 km, the GP23 was almost a lap ahead of the runner-up, which covered 61.6 km. The GP21, an older PSEM prototype that was also used this year, finished in 4th place, bringing the team closer to a double podium.

João Coelho is a final year Master’s student at Técnico (Electrical and Computer Engineering) and leads the winning team. “I couldn’t be prouder of the team’s performance throughout the year,” he says. “We knew that this year would be very demanding”, he adds, referring to the short time available to develop the car. After a lot of work, the GP23 was born – “we had just built the fastest car in the history [of this competition]”.

PSEM has 10 years of existence and has been participating in Greenpower challenge since 2014 (except for a hiatus in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic). The best result achieved was in 2022 (fifth place) with the GP21. The student organisation stresses that these achievements “were only possible due to the dedication of the entire team, who worked tirelessly”, and thanks “the contribution of [their] sponsors”.