Abstract—Electrathon Americas is an organization that promotes the development of electric vehicles for competition. The present work is focused on the design of the America single-seater structure which was based mainly on the protection of the driver, space for various accessories, improve range and aerodynamics. The design was carried out in strict adherence to the Electrathon America 2021 manual. The 3D Computer Aided Design (CAD) modeling was performed using SolidWorks software. Aluminum and steel profiles with diameters of ½ in and ¾ in with a thickness of 2.7 mm were used. The regulations specify that tests must be performed on the structure of the single-seater, mainly torsion and bending tests to ensure its correct operation with a minimum safety factor of 2; therefore, structural analyses were conducted using Ansys software. Additionally, a fluid analysis was performed. Strain gauges were used to measure structural deformations in order to validate the stress analyses carried out on the single-seater chassis. A functional single-seater vehicle was obtained, featuring a structure with a safety factor of 1.7, improvement aerodynamic, suspension and adequate steering, achieving a range of 38 km with a 1 kWh battery according to Electrathon guidelines, as well as a total mileage of 200 km without failures.

Keywords—design, America single-seater, Ansys, validation

Cite: Vignaud Granados Alejo, Francisco Javier Santander Bastida, Alejandra de los Ángeles Guzmán Patiño, Pedro Jorge de los Santos Lara, and Pedro Yañez Contreras, "Development of a Single-Seater Electric Vehicle for Electrathon America Competition," International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 187-196, 2026. doi: 10.18178/ijmerr.15.2.187-196

Copyright © 2026 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).