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■西費城中學的汽車和機械工程學會主任豪格對其學生製造的混能車充滿信心。資料圖片
岡薩雷斯站在美國費城西面一條後街的車房裡，心裡想着：我們的隊伍將能大量製造非常節能的混能車，奪取1,000萬美元(約7,800萬港元)的獎金。
岡薩雷斯並非工程師、學者或車廠的行政人員。他只是西費城中學的一個15歲學生，參加了一個學生團隊，希望贏得有名的國際「進步汽車X大獎賽」。
西費城中學的汽車和機械工程學會之前曾贏得一系列的全國比賽，製造出一些不但節能，而且可靠、快捷和新潮的汽車。
現在，他們要向大獎—「汽車X大獎」進發，參賽隊伍需要造出一輛汽車，每加侖油可行走最少100英里，且要安全舒適，並可大量生產最少1萬部。西費城的「混合X隊」是90隊國內和海外參賽隊伍中唯一的中學生隊伍。
岡薩雷斯表示﹕「我知道我們會勝出，我們贏過很多賽事，而且有工程的背景和經驗。」
該隊曾在2002年、2005年和2006年贏得「Tour de Sol」比賽，製造出時速150英里，即是每加侖油行走100英里的生物柴油或混能汽車。首次參賽時便擊敗40支隊伍，包括麻省理工大學代表。
1998年起擔任學會主任的豪格表示，如果你考慮到年輕人跳出框架的創造力時，就會知道來自寂寂無名社區的窮小子都能擊敗其他重量級對手。那些學生在2003年的比賽中看到豐田的混能車Prius後，便產生製造更快更酷高效能車的初步構思，最終他們造了名叫「攻擊」的混能車。
豪格指出﹕「我們並非要造出必勝之車，只是希望打破混能車的框架。」但「攻擊」在2005和2006年連續兩屆都贏得冠軍。學會最初只希望教授汽車維修技術，好讓學生離校後能找到工作，參加比賽只是一個副產品。
10至15名學會成員會上課學習基本的汽車知識，他們其後會學以致用，製造出獲獎汽車。
路透社
■資深翻譯員 羅國偉
Philadelphia students build fuel-efficient hybrid car
Standing in a garage on a West Philadelphia backstreet, Stefon Gonzalez is sure his team can win a $10 million prize to build the best super-efficient, mass-production hybrid car.
Gonzalez isn't an engineer, an academic or an executive from an automaker. He is a 15-year-old student at West Philadelphia High School who is part of a student team that is hoping to win the top prize in the prestigious international Progressive Automotive X Prize competition.
Students at the school's Academy of Automotive and Mechanical Engineering have previously won a series of national awards for building cars that are not only extremely fuel efficient, but are also reliable, quick and even stylish.
Now, they are going for the big one-the Automotive X Prize. It requires entrants to build cars that can do at least 100 miles per gallon, can be produced in quantities of at least 10,000, and are safe and reliable. The West Philly Hybrid X team is the only high school competitor in a field of about 90 teams from the U.S. and overseas.
"I know we're going to win," said Gonzalez, "We've got a good history of winning competitions and we've got the engineering background and the experience."
In 2002, 2005 and 2006, the team won the Tour de Sol, a competition for production hybrid or bio-diesel vehicles to drive at least 150 miles at the energy equivalent of 100 miles per gallon or better. On its first attempt, it beats 40 other teams, including one from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Simon Hauger, the academy's director since its inception in 1998, said the idea that high school kids from a poor inner-city neighborhood can beat such heavyweight competition is not so strange when you consider the ability of teenagers to think outside the box.
The students saw the gasoline/electric Toyota Prius at a 2003 competition, and came up with the idea of building a hybrid that would meet high fuel-consumption standards while also being fast and cool-looking. The result was the Hybrid Attack.
"We didn't design the car to win but to break the stereotype of what a hybrid car could be." Hauger said. But the car did win, taking top place in the Tour de Sol in 2005 and 2006.
The competition entries are an outgrowth of the academy's beginning, which was to train students in basic automotive maintenance so that they can get a job after leaving school.
The 10 to 15 students that form a typical class at the academy get classroom instruction in basic automobile functions and they apply the skills to the more glamorous business of building competition-winning cars.
Reuters
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