Automotive X Prize entries still up for grabs

Despite all of the environmentally friendly cars shown at the Detroit auto show this year, no imminent production model could be expected to sustain an average of 100 mpg—just one requirement in the Auto X Prize competition. Even the display plug-in hybrids would fall short in the real-world once their gasoline or diesel engine starts up to supplement the drained battery pack. However, Automotive X Prize aims to spur development of that mythical 100 mpg car with a unique race backed by a $10 million purse.

So far, 51 teams from seven countries have signed up to enter this competition. Many have brand-new technologies and have never built cars before. Some are technology companies in other industries (such as electric machinery components), but they haven't made vehicles, either. Some entrants are backyard inventors with patents on interesting technologies that have not been used in cars, and some are just creative tinkerers who think they have a better idea. Other entrants are established niche vehicle companies that have built a wide variety of "alternative" cars—most of them electric, tiny, slow, three-wheelers, or not highway legal. At least one university team is competing, as well.

Below is a list of teams that, based on their technology, name recognition (and thus access to funds), and the details of their plans, sound the most promising to me:

• Tesla Motors is entering one of their all-electric Roadsters, with a range expected to be over 200 miles, 0-60 mph acceleration under 4 seconds, and a price over $100,000. It is expected to be on sale later this year.
• Loremo AG, a company based in Munich, Germany, was also working on their car before the competition was announced. It is a rear-wheel drive, four-wheeled 2+2 coupe (two front seats, and two jump seats in the rear for children) powered by a 20-hp, two-cylinder diesel engine, that the company says will get 150 mpg.
• Cornell University plans a simpler approach: taking an old Geo Metro and converting it to plug-in hybrid power. I include them because this team has been in the top tier of most competitions it has entered, including being only one of five finishers in this year's DARPA Urban Challenge for self-driving vehicles.

So far, however, no major automakers have entered. And most of the advanced university teams and automotive think-tanks have not entered.

X Prize officials noted that the deadline for entries will be set soon; the first round of competition is scheduled for next spring. The officials said they still expected to hear from a number of last-minute entrants. In the meantime, given the cost to develop a competitive entry and meet the competition's consumer acceptability requirements, complete with a business plan for producing and selling 10,000 cars, there may not be a competitor who walks away with the prize in 2010.

But previous X Prize competitions have worked like the DARPA Grand Challenge: If no one claims the prize the first year, it gets offered again until someone does.

So take heart, tinkerers, there may be a next time.

—Eric Evarts

Check out our previous coverage of the Automotive X Prize:
Auto X Prize announces the teams competing to build 100-mpg car
Auto X Prize to reward 100-mpg car

Discuss the Auto X Prize in the Consumer Reports forum.

Comments

[Ed]

Can I buy a Loremo? Please? Are they really as safe as the website proclaims? Please please let me import one!

[David Evans]

It's funny the fetish quality numbers can have. 100 mpg sounds meaningful, but that's US gallons, and the actual amount of gas used doesn't lead to such a magic number anywhere else in the world. Europe and Canada use litres per 100 kms, so the gas usage isn't such a magic number in that measurement: 2.35214584 l/100km. It's about 83 mpg in imperial gallons.
See the comments at
http://autoxprize.typepad.com/axp/2006/08/why_100_mpg_is_.html
Any way you put it, it's great mileage and low gas usage, but the "100 mpg" is nothing magical: it's just used because it sounds good, I guess. Getting down to 2l/100km would be even better and is nice and magical in that measurement [that's 117 mpg US or a 141 mpg-imperial].
For a further explanation of the measurement differences see
http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/publications/transportation/fuel-guide/2008/comparing-vehicles.cfm?attr=8

[Jim Bullis]

None of those on your predicted winner list realize that radically new aerodynamics could be the key to winning the X Prize. It could also be the key to solving global warming and world oil problems, which is the real point.

Radical new aerodynamics is distinguished from what I call "cute outfit aerodynamics," which is all you can do with the four wheeled box, running low to the ground, that we call a car.

I had thought that Tesla had the inside track because their all electric vehicle gets favored treatment in the miles per gallon criterion, since the X-Prize people are inclined to stick with their idea of electrical energy and heat energy equivalence. There is no easy answer to this problem, since reasonable people can assert different generation methods. The proposed X Prize method uses heat equivalence of already generated electricity with heat from burning fuel. If you use the actual thermal fuel efficiency of fossil fuel generated electricity in the United States (average over all types of fossil fuel) in the calculation, the "MPG equivalent" is one third. Tesla advertises "135 MPG equivalent", and so it would be graded by X Prize standards, but taking account of the fact that energy thrown away by power generating stations is twice as much energy as the electric energy they make, this becomes 45 'MPG true equivalent'.

On the other end of the range is the possibility that electric energy for the electric car comes from solar cells. Now, the car gets infinite MPG equivalent. But the cost of the solar cells and storage equipment has to be noted. And I don't mean the cost after rebates and tax credits, because this is just cost shifting.

Cornell may fall into the practice of plug-in hybrid producers of completely ignoring the electic energy used, and talking about miles per gallon. When pressed, they will say that gallons only refer to gasoline, and they just had not gotten around to talking about the electric part. Some plug-in promoters use the terminology of "MPG+", which is hard to pin down gibberish.

But the Cornell guys should add some aerodynamics talent to their control system group. Then they will realize that the Metro uses quite a lot of energy in churning up air. Without fixing that, it won't matter how efficient the machinery is.

I agree that the Loremo could be a contender. It certainly looks nice, but having felt puny for 18 years in an Acura Integra, I am reluctant to vote for the very low profile Loremo.

If you seriously looked at the Aptera http://www.aptera.com you would realize that with innovative aerodynamics, the automobile can truly be taken off the table as a major part of the global warming and fuel addiction problem. It appears that the Aptera achieves stability with a very wide wheel base which could come to be accepted. It fails to provide a commanding view of the road, like the Loremo. It is visually different, though except to excellent aerodynamics, it is not so much different than the once promising Trihawk of 1983.

I am proposing the Miastrada, as seen at http://www.miastrada.com. Getting public acceptance of such an unusual looking vehicle is a challenge, though its potential capabilities could make it the X Prize winner. Though the schedule looks difficult, I am planning to enter it in the alternative class.

[Jim Bullis]

I looked carefully at the Loremo web site, trying to understand how they do as well as they claim. I think the answer is that there is a significant space between the bottom of the car body and the ground. This allows air to pass more evenly around all four sides of the car.

But because they are prevented by stability concerns from making the car very high, the motorist is going to feel very cramped between the raised floor and the low top.

I can imagine a Consumer Reports review on this. But they could be in position to win the X Prize.