The ‘Green by Design’ team entered the Screwball Rally 2023 and were extremely grateful to be sponsored by Ecomotus who fitted one of their hydrogen fuel additive systems to our car.

The Screwball Rally is an annual event where entrants drive across Europe in low-cost cars. This year the rally covered around 2000 miles and the Green by Design team car was an 18-year old Ford Fiesta 1.2. With three people onboard and all their associated camping gear and other equipment it was likely to be a thirsty journey for the car. There was even a large top box fitted to accommodate everything needed for five days on the road.

The ‘real’ mpg, garnered from numerous real world experiences of people with the same car, is quoted as 33.2mpg. We were astonished to find on returning to the UK that our little heavily-laden car had managed a combined figure of 42.2mpg. And that included a fairly spirited dash back to the ferry on the last day along Germany’s famous Autobahns!

This means we had a 27% increase in range, resulting in a saving of approximately 100 litres, or 160 Euros-worth of fuel.

A system that reduces fuel consumption, emissions, and the carbonisation of engines and oil, and that can be retrofitted even to a car as old as the one we drove around Europe, has to be the way forward for all combustion engines, old and new.

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