07 April 2008
Extra-Efficient Car Contest Attracts Global Attention
X Prize challenge aims to encourage unconventional thinking
Washington -- What may be the car race of the century is well under way and may take two years to finish. A $10 million award announced at the New York International Auto Show in March 2008 has attracted more than 60 teams, most of them from the United States but also from Australia, Canada, Germany, Finland, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
But before rubber hits the road, the competitors first must design and build their cars -- vehicles that can go at least 100 miles (160 kilometers) on a gallon (3.8 liters) of fuel. This is the main condition of the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize, announced by the X Prize Foundation and the Progressive insurance company.
The challenge invites both startups and major car manufacturers not only to build an extra-efficient car but also to develop a viable manufacturing plan and prove the mettle and safety of their vehicle during a set of tests and races to begin in 2009.
“We are not talking about concept cars,” said Chairman of the X Prize Foundation Peter Diamandis while announcing the challenge. “We’re talking about real cars that can be brought to market in the near term that consumers will want to buy.”
The X Prize Foundation is a nonprofit educational organization that creates and manages prizes that drive innovators to solve the world’s most pressing problems. It seeks to leverage the elements of public interest, entrepreneurial spirit and cross-disciplinary effort to bring about technological and market breakthroughs.
The X Prize was established in 1996 by Diamandis, a pioneer in the arena of commercial space. In 2004, it was renamed the Ansari X Prize to reflect a multimillion-dollar donation from the Ansari family. (See “American, Iranian Cultures Support Space Pioneer's Achievements.”)
The foundation follows in the tradition of early 20th-century privately funded prizes that are credited for the rapid growth of U.S. aviation in the 1920s and 1930s. One of those awards was the $25,000 Orteig Prize, offered by hotel magnate Raymond Orteig for the first successful nonstop flight between New York and Paris. The prize went to Charles Lindbergh, who covered the distance in 1927.
Like its predecessors, the X-Prize Foundation wants to encourage a smaller, more individualistic and more adventurous approach to innovation than practiced by large corporations and research laboratories.
“We believe that a small group of people with passion for a cause can achieve that which has never been attained. This is why we stage competitions that challenge issues that matter most,” says the foundation on its Web site.
In 2004, the $10 million Ansari X Prize was awarded to Mojave Aerospace Ventures for the flight of SpaceShipOne, the first privately built vehicle to reach space, defined as a suborbital altitude of 100 kilometers. (See “NASA Administrator Congratulates the SpaceShipOne Team.”)
After the SpaceShipOne achievement, the foundation decided to come back to earth.
“Most everybody in the organization said: ‘We need to do an automotive X prize. We need to provide the incentives to build a new generation of cars that can stem the tide of foreign oil and help bring about cars that are efficient, that are affordable, desirable, low-cost, manufacturable,’” said Diamandis in a Web video statement.
Some of the registered competitors exhibited their prototypes at the New York auto show. Among them is a group of high school students from Philadelphia who, together with their teacher, Simon Huager, have built the biodiesel hot-rod Attack, which they plan to convert into a biodiesel-electric hybrid.
The list of competitors also includes six Canadian engineers, the builders of alé, a three-wheeler that runs on -- literally -- fuel vapors, and a company from Los Angeles working on a narrow, aerodynamic gas-electric vehicle called VentureOne that would lean into curves like a motorcycle.
“I don’t know what technology is going to win -- pure electric or hybrid or a version of the engines that we have today -- but I do know that an incentive X Prize can bring U.S. consumers the widest choice and, hopefully, give us a new generation of cars that we all love to drive and that are great for the environment,” Diamandis said.
For more information, see the Progressive Automotive X-Prize Web site.
