The X PRIZE for Cars | Green Energy News

March 25, 2007 – Vol.12 No.1

THE X PRIZE FOR CARS.

A caller to a segment of talk radio show Onpoint, discussing the upcoming Automotive X PRIZE, suggested that all cars have a cost-per-mile computer on the dashboard. By calculating the fuel cost vs fuel economy vs distance traveled drivers would get a glaring, real time notification on how much it costs to drive.

If people knew how much cash was leaving their pockets as they drove along they’d drive less or buy more efficient cars, the caller reasoned.

A good idea. Any takers for this new invention?

The X PRIZE Foundation is in the process of fine-tuning the particulars of a $25 million prize to encourage the development of a 100-mile-per-gallon-on-gasoline-equivalent car. As you might recall the first Ansari X PRIZE of $10 million was to build a craft to carry ordinary people into space. It was won by Mojave Aerospace Ventures with its SpaceShipOne. It flew to what is technically known as space, about 100 kilometers up, twice within two weeks. It didn’t fly into into orbit. (It’s another large technological leap from a pop shot to the threshold of space to orbiting the planet.)

It’s not a huge leap to build a 100 mpg car, but it is a leap to build one that people might actually buy in large numbers; most likely one of the stipulations of the new X PRIZE.

The prize has already attracted the interest from full scale automakers all the way down to home-shop inventors. The little guys would be happy with the 25 mil. It’s peanuts for the big guys. Yet even before the X PRIZE officially gets under way, big and small companies alike are working on technologies for cars that get much better fuel economy and well over 100 mpg. (This publication has been featuring these technologies for years.)

Cutting overall weight of vehicles will certainly be a goal of X PRIZE contenders. Each ten percent in weight reduction can lead to a 7-8 percent increase in fuel economy.

Weight saving and building a vehicle with recycled resources are the result with the QarmaQ (pronounced Karma–Q) concept car built by Hyundai.

The car uses high-performance composites and thermoplastics made from recycled plastic bottles to make parts that would ordinarily be made from metal and glass. The front end of the QarmaQ is a soft plastic to absorb minor collisions. Windows, including the windscreen, are made mostly of plastic but are laminated with a thin layer of glass to prevent abrasion.

The ability to mold complex shapes is an added benefit of building with plastic.

Plug-in hybrids (PHEV) have already been shown to meet and exceed 100 mpg. While Big Auto is now developing PHEVs, smaller companies are developing kits to convert factory-built hybrids to them.

South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) of California has awarded Hymotion, A123 Systems and AeroVironment a contract to provide 10 converted PHEVs to be used in an evaluation project for the state.

Hymotion will provide the PHEV conversion, A123 the lithium batteries and AeroVironment the charging system. The companies say the vehicles should average 150 mpg with up to 220 mpg in all-electric mode.

Hymotion’s plug and play PHEV conversion does not require the removal of the vehicle’s stock battery pack.

A123 and Hymotion are also working to provide the New York Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) with as many as 600 PHEVs. A123 is working with General Motors on its first PHEV, a version of its Saturn Vue Green Line.

The Automotive XPRIZE will have a category for experimental vehicles, vehicles that might reach the 100 mpg mark, but might not be considered mainstream vehicles.

One of those vehicles could very well be the XR-3 now being developed by product design firm Robert Q. Riley Enterprises.

The three-wheeled PHEV is not quite a car and more than a motorcycle. With both diesel and electric drive on board it could get up to 225 mpg Battery electric range, the company says, will be up to 40 miles.

There’s one caveat, however. It you want an XR-3 you’ll have to build it yourself. The company will be offering plans and an easy-to-build kit.

Experimental cars, and kit cars like the XR-3, are far from being mainstream cars. However ideas, technology and possibly the whole cars themselves could evolve into full production cars. It is after-all marketers that create the markets for new products. Cars that may seem offbeat today may become tomorrow’s mainstream vehicles with a good dose of savvy marketing.

Like the shot into Space, fresh ideas, new ways of doing things is really what the Automotive X Prize is all about: Bringing out a whole new set of thoughts for ultrahigh fuel economy vehicles that the US needs immediately.

Visit the Automotive X Prize at http://auto.xprize.org/ A123 systems at http://www.a123systems.com/ Hymotion at http://www.hymotion.com/ AeroVironment at http://www.avinc.com/ Robert Q. Riley Enterprises at http://www.rqriley.com/