During the final year of his Masters of Electrical Engineering, the 28-year-old was appointed chief electrical engineer of the project and, along with the chief mechanical engineer, he guided the group as they built on previous students’ knowledge to create the innovative car.

After a year of working on the project, their efforts were showcased and their car put to the test at the annual 2019 Formula SAE-A, held on December 9 at Winton Motor Raceway.

The event is organised by the Society of Automotive Engineers Australasia (SAE-A), the leading non-profit membership organisation for mobility focused engineers.

Each December, thousands of students, volunteers and spectators get to experience around 30 university teams pitting their machines head-to-head in the competition.

Cars are tested on everything from speed to design and efficiency.

The event attracts teams from across the world including the UK, Germany, India, Japan, New Zealand and the USA, while team members are headhunted for their unique skill sets in engineering, management, leadership, teamwork, marketing and finance, each honed to perfection in this real-life commercial project.

The program shapes the next generation of innovators, superstars and leaders of tomorrow’s mobility and transport technologies sector, just like Varveri.

Born into an Italian family with grandparents from Abruzzo, Calabria and Sicily, Varveri grew up with a passion for motorsport and was intrigued by the technology behind the vehicles.

As an avid engineering student, Varveri first became involved in the Formula SAE-A program in 2018.

Having already worked on the project before his final year rolled around, he was the student in 2019 who’d had the most experience with the university’s previous car and the research that went into it.

After working on the project for an entire year, Varveri and his team took their race car to Winton to test the fruit of their labour.

The team were judged by their design and engineering understanding on the day of the competition across a range of categories, from endurance to how fast the car can accelerate.

They came third in the “skidpad” category, which tested the car’s manoeuvrability, scoring The University of Melbourne its first trophy in four years.

The electric race car photographed at The University of Melbourne, in Parkville

“We’re pretty proud because the car was very fast and if we hadn’t run into any electrical and mechanical issues on the day, we would’ve done really well,” Varveri said.

It was only natural that things didn’t go to plan on the day, as electric cars are a relatively new area of research.

“There’s been 60 years of research and development on traditional combustion cars, but there’s not much out there in terms of electric cars yet,” Varveri explained.

“We’re doing a lot of the preliminary work and the primal challenge was breaking new ground.”

Another major challenge for Varveri was managing a team of 60 students.

Half of the group were Masters students in their final year and the other half were heavily involved in the project but weren’t doing their final research paper on it.

“Those who weren’t in their final year were doing what I’d done in 2018,” Varveri explained.

“They were mainly there to get familiar with the program so when they do their final year project on it they have a good understanding of the research.”

The team’s work will be handed over this year for the next group of students who’ll continue it on.

“The car gets handed on as well so new students can get familiar with it and use it to decide on what design changes they’ll make for their car this year,” Varveri said.

The research completed by each generation of students is essentially the groundwork for what will go out into the motor industry.

Varveri believes that the future of cars is electric.

“Going by what we developed and worked on, electric cars have capabilities that can outperform petrol cars by a long shot, especially in racing,” he said.

“The electric cars in the competition were all quite a lot more versatile than petrol cars.”

“It’s a really exciting time for what’s to come in the industry; as more money is put into the research we should see electric cars take over the combustion car and revolutionise transport.”

Varveri added that electric cars will lead to a safer environment, due to their capacity for autonomous technology in which human drivers are never required to take control to safely operate the vehicle. 

“Autonomous technology can only be developed in electric cars and it offers such a big improvement in road safety and traffic,” he said.

“Once we’ve got a big fleet of autonomous cars on the road, you could essentially bring the road toll down to zero.”

While Varveri currently has a “regular” engineering job, he’s working on some ideas for a start-up company with friends that would bring new developments to the electric car industry.

We can’t wait to see what his ambition and smarts will come up with next!