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I wonder what the maintenance efficiency of this car is.

Your too generous, its not a car. It is a rolling science project, a trike, something no one could drive to work or play.

I want to see work done with existing vehicles, full safety and comfort features, where through inexpensive aerodynamic changes and propulsion tricks improve on what manufacturers offer now.

Have you seen the VW 1-litre car?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_1-litre_car

Thanks for posting this. My own first thoughts on seeing the project were: looks like a soapbox racer (and I laughed watching a video where they gave it a manual push down a slope to get it going), does France not have speed bumps or steep driveways or road litter, what's its top speed, and how survivable is a collision? This competition is just pure PR for Shell and other companies, engineering constraints for an actual car don't seem to matter. (I'm sure the students enjoy it and learn a lot though.)

Speed bumps would be prohibitive for F1 too. Yet, many technologies perfected in F1 made their ways into every day cars.

This is a race car. The purpose of the race is not to be the fastest but to consume the least amount of petrol.

Not to bad... But you do need two helpers to close the "door" for you.

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