Automotive X Prize finds sponsor - get your applications ready

The Automotive X Prize is off to the races. This high-minded contest is designed to spur teams to develop a 100-mpg car by offering a $10 million prize.

Starting in the next 60 days, X Prize organizers will begin accepting final applications. Entries will be vetted by a prize committee to ensure the teams have a viable business plan to build and sell 10,000 copies of their designs and that the designs will appeal to a mass-market consumer.

Teams who clear that hurdle will compete in a series of races in various cities around the country starting late in 2009. In the first round of competition, contestants will be required to get at least 80 mpg, and the fastest car will win. In 2010, finalists from those races will compete for the grand prize in another series of races in which they must get 100 mpg. Again, the fastest car (the fastest to finish while achieving 100 mpg) will win.

So far, 64 teams from 22 states and several foreign countries have signed up to compete. Four teams had cars on display at the New York auto show announcement: Fuel Vapor Technologies (shown left), Venture Vehicles, Zero Pollution Motors' Air Car (which runs on a compressed air charge), and the West Philadelphia Hybrid X team.

In addition, the X Prize foundation announced a sponsor of the $10 million prize money. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company is putting up the prize purse, while the U.S. Department of Energy is sponsoring up to $3.5 million in money for outreach and education on the fuel saving technologies.

—Eric Evarts

Check out our previous coverage of the Automotive X Prize:
Automotive X Prize entries still up for grabs
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.