[Ip-health] Another Prize: £10m prize for the inv entor of the world's fastest eco car

[Ira Glazer]

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/mean-green-racing-mac=
hines-16310m-prize-for-the-inventor-of-the-worlds-fastest-eco-car-772416.html?service=Print

Fifty international teams of maverick inventors are racing to build the
world's fastest eco cars – and win $10m.

www.auto.xprize.org

"The beauty of a prize like this is that you can never say who's going
to win," says Cristin Lindsay, one of AXP's senior directors. "When
Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic to win the Orteig Prize, he
was the underdog. Nobody believed he could win with only the backing of
a few people in St Louis."

The competition and its rules won't be formally announced until March,
yet already more than 50 teams from eight countries are committed to
taking part. Some of their designs, from the Knight Rider styling of the
Avion, which its creators claim is "the lightest car made in America",
to the ladybird-like three-wheeler of German team Twike, are already in
the public domain – though modifications may be required once the rules
are clarified.

This early enthusiasm is down to the pedigree of the prize, funded by
the not-for-profit X Prize Foundation. Established in 1996 with a
mission to encourage "revolution through competition" for the benefit of
humanity, the foundation is modelled on the Orteig Prize, which gave the
fledgling aviation industry the take-off it needed, and which Lindbergh
won in 1927.

In 2004, the Ansari X Prize of $10m was awarded to the aerospace
engineer Burt Rutan after he designed a small, re-useable spacecraft
that would advance the possibility of low-cost, private spaceflight.
Originally financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Rutan is now
working with the Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson on a viable space
tourism programme.

Now under way is the Archon X Prize competition, intended to transform
human genome sequencing by offering $10m to the first team that can
cheaply sequence 100 anonymous human genomes in 10 days. The Lunar X
Prize competition, sponsored by Google, was launched in September last
year, with the aim of landing an unmanned private spacecraft on the Moon.

The potential in the more down-to-earth Automotive X Prize is huge. It
will have an instant and substantial impact on millions of car-buyers
and, the organisers hope, on the environment. The plan is to transform
the market into one that demands – and expects – efficient,
environmentally sound cars.

The last time the automotive industry saw such a radical shake-up was
when Henry Ford began mass-producing the Model T, a car that could
achieve 25mpg. It was taken out of production the same year Lindbergh
made his Atlantic crossing. Today, the average US driver gets only a
miserly 20.2mpg from their vehicle. The UK average is a slightly better
32mpg, but that's little consolation in the context of accelerating
climate change.

"After the success of the Ansari X Prize, the priority for the
foundation was to focus on the automotive industry, with the goal of
slimming our addiction to oil and the effects of climate change,"
Cristin Lindsay says.

Hitting the 100mpg target is just the start. The final part of the
competition, in 2009 and 2010, will be a long-distance road race taking
in about 10 major US cities, giving the public a good look at the cars
they might be driving in years to come. The designs will be tested in
all conditions and climates the US can throw at them, from the inner
city to the mountains. They will all be fitted with "black boxes"
allowing web-users to follow their progress and monitor efficiency. The
100mpg car with the fastest overall race time will win the $10m.

But before the prototypes even make it to the starting line, they'll
have to meet four vital criteria: "The teams have to prove that their
designs are safe, affordable, backed by a business plan to produce
10,000 vehicles per year, and have all the features a consumer expects
from a car," Lindsay says. Those features are likely to include at least
four seats, air conditioning and a stereo. "The only requirement we
place on fuel is that the teams prove that their fuel or energy source
is available and widely acceptable to consumers today. That's one of the
reasons we don't outlaw gasoline-powered vehicles. If they can meet the
fuel efficiency target and emissions standards, they're clean enough."

As well as the 100mpg target, entrants have to design a vehicle that
emits less than 200g of greenhouse gas per mile. The Toyota Prius and
its fellow celebrity hybrids won't necessarily make the cut. And,
because they tend to derive their energy from the fossil fuel-hungry
national grid, electric vehicles aren't as saintly as they are billed,
either. So the AXP organisers have calculated a "well to wheels"
emissions equivalent that demands such cars hit not 100mpg, but 133mpg,
to qualify.

Petrol may not be forbidden, but that hasn't stopped some teams
experimenting with rather more outlandish fuels. One French-US team,
Zero-Pollution Vehicles, uses compressed air technology (CAT) to power
its car, the MiniCAT. And they are no outsiders – India's Tata Motors,
which this month revealed a car it intends to sell for £1,300, has
signed up to use the CAT technology.

For those who like their cars a little different, the AXP boasts a
second "alternative class" for cars that stick more faithfully to the
Hollywood version of the future. The sci-fi streamlining of the Typ-1
three-wheeler, developed by the Aptera company, means that it requires
just a tiny 50kw electric motor to break the speed limit. Aptera is
based in – where else? – California.

Another potential fuel source is hydrogen, which, by the time of the
competition's final stages, may be considered a viable fuel. So says Dr
John Davis, the director of Dragonfly, one of two British teams already
developing an AXP prototype. "The organisers don't want to award the
prize to a car that requires fuel from a single station somewhere in the
depths of Dakota," Davis says. "But the possibility of home hydrogen
generation is real, and there may be a hydrogen supply infrastructure in
place sometime in the near future."

The crucial element of Davis's design is not the fuel source, but the
powertrain: those components that turn the fuel into movement. Luckily,
Dragonfly – a team composed of skilled Formula One veterans – had
already been working on a high-mileage car concept for some time when
the AXP came along.

"My particular project doesn't need a specific prime source of energy,"
Davis says. "It doesn't matter whether it's diesel, petrol or hydrogen.
The key thing is the efficient use of it: energy storage and energy
control. The intention is to put our powertrain system into a standard
car. It's a mechanical hybrid, which stores energy in a flywheel rather
than a battery, and has a patented gearbox configuration."

Davis is convinced that a competition like AXP is the best way to force
change in the habits of both motorists and the big car-makers. "People
are still happy to squander fuel – you only need look at the SUV market
to see that people aren't yet buying cars based on their miles per
gallon. Until the price of petrol hits £2 or £3 per litre, the incentive
for the car companies to develop something new just doesn't exist. So
you can either wait for that to happen, or you can turn to people who
like to do things for the sake of it and say, 'You go off and prove what
can be done.'"

Cristin Lindsay thinks that, as the competition rules are finalised,
some of the major industry players will enter the race. "Those who have
come forward early are primarily innovators who wouldn't normally work
on building an efficient car. The more standard industry players will
come forward after we have officially launched."

Dragonfly's John Davis adds: "One day there will be nuclear-powered cars
that will run for ever and cost nothin g. But if we wait for the perfect
energy system, then nothing will happen.

"These cars will only be an interim measure, but let's assume that the
petrol engine has a few years to go. It shouldn't be doing less miles
per gallon than a Model T Ford. The objective of the AXP is to make
things happen. The organisers don't really care whether the winner is
the one who gets the cars out there. If cars increase their miles per
gallon, the winner will be the environment."