Five student teams of Vietnam will take part in the contest to manufacture fuel-efficient vehicles in the Philippines in February 2014.

The contest "Shell Eco Marathon Asia 2014" will attract 157 student teams from 16 countries in Asia and the Middle East. Vietnam will send five teams from technical universities in Hanoi, Dong Nai and HCM City to the competition. In the 5th contest, held in Manila, the number of participating teams will double that of 2010.

According to the organizers, the contest is not just about technology and applications, but it is also an opportunity for students to practice, from making detailed planning to design and operate a vehicle. The competition also helps participants be better aware about the use and make good use of the existing energy sources.

A representative of the LH Gold Energy team from the HCM City-based Lac Hong University says that this is the first time the team participating in such a big contest. All team members are very excited and anxious to wait for the days of competition.

The competition will be held in Luneta Park in downtown Manila (Philippines).

The participating teams will face the first energy challenge in the modern city environment. In the future, cities will face with the explosion of the world population from 7 billion to 9 billion by 2050, along with the increase in energy demand. This challenge will partly show the effectiveness of new technology applications at the heart of cities.

The competition will not take into account the speed but the farthest distance that a vehicle can reach with one liter of fuel.

"Shell Eco-Marathon" began in 1939 in a Shell research laboratory in the U.S., stemming from the race between two scientists to see who could go the longest distance on each gallon of fuel by their own vehicles.