The team pushing car 716 through the Indianapolis paddock
/ Shell Eco-marathon United States 2026 · Urban Concept

From record car
to real car.

Why Urban Concept

A harder problem

Prototype-class cars are rolling physics experiments: the driver lies down, the body is a teardrop, and every rule bends toward efficiency.

Urban Concept differs significantly. The rules demand a street-realistic vehicle: upright seating, four wheels, doors, a windshield with a wiper, headlights and turn signals, a horn, a luggage compartment, hydraulic disc brakes. It has to be practical, safe, and legal-looking, and then it has to be efficient.

This is the class that maps to the future of everyday electric transportation.

The race-ready 2026 Urban Concept car
Shell-Eco MarathonRacing vehicle
Build log · 2026
Sanding the full-scale body molds at the composites facility
Log 01Mold sanding, composites facility
Vacuum-bagged carbon layup with the composites crew
Log 02Vacuum infusion, body shells
First rolling chassis test on campus with exposed internals
Log 03First roll, campus chassis test
Future work

What about 2027?

With an underlying vehicle architecture fully defined, this upcoming season is about perfecting each subsystem in the name of efficiency.