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X Prize For a 100-MPG Car
Heinen writes in about the X Prize Foundation, which spurred innovation by offering US $10 million for the first privately built spacecraft. The Foundation now plans to offer millions for the first practical car that increases mileage five-fold. The specs for the competition are out in draft form amd call for cars in two categories that are capable of 100 MPG in tests to be run in 2009. The categories are: 4-passenger/4-wheel; and 2-passenger/unspecified wheels. The cars must be manufacturable, not "science projects. The prize is expected to top $10 million. The X Prize Foundation says that so far it has received more than 1,000 inquiries from possible competitors.
It's possible to make cars that are 'manufacturable' that meet this, the real problem will be making cars that are manufacturable... AND sellable.
Is there a market for super efficient cars that look like tampons with wheels?
To get good fuel economy probably needs a mindshift away from SUVs and Hummers towards smaller 1300cc or smaller cars.
The "look" of cars is pretty much fashion driven, dictated by the car manufacturers to promote consumption. This year it's round headlights, next year square; boxy Hummer look one year, curved Porche look the next; big grill, then small.
Car manufacturers keep advertising more power, size etc (10% more power than last year's model, 5% more space...). How is it that they never advertise reduced consumption (well they might, but only if it does not compromise power, size etc)..
People really need to see cars as transport. Perhaps then they will start to think in terms of efficiency etc.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
amd call for cars in two categories that are capable of 100 MPG in tests to be run in 2009.
AMD calls for cars that are capable of 100 MPG? Meanwhile, I call for AMD to design a processor that is capable of 100 GHz by 2009.
SpaceShip Two is gearing up for private space flight as we speak. It has been less than three years since the X-Prize. Personal spaceflight is not an easy process, you shouldn't expect it to be commonplace tomorrow.
I read the internet for the articles.
IMO this contest is looking for a milestone in a direction we may not want to go. On the surface it may seem worthy, but new technologies may be making internal combustion engines obsolete in the next decade, and I can't really tell whether the contest rules will take these advances into account. How would one judge a vehicle powered by a hypercapacitor, or by compressed air? You're comparing apples to oranges by merely judging the equivalent energy used to power the vehicle; the ultimate cost of stored electricity may be a lot lower per joule than that in refined petroleum, or it could be higher. How does one judge the total carbon emissions for that electricity? Was it generated by a coal-burning plant, or by nuclear? Or wind, or sea?
The article seems a bit vague on what practical means. Will it have to include air conditioning, power windows, automatic transmission... like Americans are used to? I can see many entries removing all these features that are pretty much standard on cars today just to save some weight. That's not even going into how I hope it's safe enough to drive and can hit 60 MPH in under, say, 15 seconds.
Now that I've mentioned my concerns, I have to say it's a great idea. Such a prize would push for innovation and provide the world with a useful solution to a growing problem.
Why not an X-Prize for an electric car that can charge from standard electrical outlets and has a range of say 200-300 miles? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for efficiency but oil is a finite resource that is concentrated in hard to reach or politically turbulent parts of the world. Even as we improve on efficiency more and more people hit the road so we wind up treading water (or oil) and going no-where. As long as we depend on fossil fuels for energy the demand is going to increase faster than we can make efficiency improvements. Electricity can be produced through a number of means including but not limited to wind and solar and unlike hydrogen the distribution infrastructure is already there.
-------------------
WP
http://blog.wperry.net/
wouldn't existing electric vehicles already meet the "100 mpg" criterea? Undefined gas mileage is certainly better than 100 mpg.
Or what about a gas/electric hybrid that didn't really use it's gas engine, except at highway speeds, and charged up from a wall socket?
VW already have a production car that gets ~80mpg and have had trial cars beat 300mpg in real traffic. Of all the big car companies they're the most likely ones to do this, yet as a big car company the $10m would be far less useful then the promotion.
/* FUCK - The F-word is here so that you can grep for it */
The problem with the X-prize was that all the money was in first place. When Space Ship One won it, there was no financial incentive for the others to keep going. ( I've seen the same thing in chess tournaments - the lower prizes are significant enough to keep people from dropping out )
It should have been something like 1st = 10 mil, 2nd = 5 mil, 3rd = 2.5 mil, 4th = 1.5 mil, 5th = 1 mil. Yes, it costs twice as much, but it gets more than twice the benefit: instead of one company producing results, three or four, maybe five do.
More pictures and info here and here. Now this is a two seat car, and if you follow the links above, you'll see not the most spacious.
VW also produce a 3 litre car, the Lupo. The fuel consummation here is 78 miles per US gallon or 94 miles per Imperial gallon and this car is in production, and will hold four people and a wee bit of luggage.
With this in mind, does this competition sound like its really pushing the envelope?
Independence? That's middle-class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth. G.B Shaw
Lets face it, the reason why a lot of people are driving big SUV's and suffering with 20 MPG highway 15 MPG city is because of the marvelous 5 STAR safety rating these vehicles provide.
The roads are (in America) getting more crowded by the day, the law of tonnage rules and small guys get eaten alive in wrecks.
Is it really worth it to be driving around in a vehicle that gets 30, 40 or even a 100 MPG HWY if it gets compacted like a soda can if merely bumped?
Something to think about.
Can I use a gallon of uranium instead?
Can I total the distance that each piece travels, or does it all have to be in the same direction?
Can the direction be "up"?
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
The problem with the X-prize was that all the money was in first place. When Space Ship One won it, there was no financial incentive for the others to keep going.
The classic example of that was the Kremer Prize for human-powered flight, won in 1977. Once that was done, interest in human-powered flight declined substantially. That effort didn't usher in an era of recreational pedal-powered flying.
Why do you need huge acceleration and top speed? You're using your car for transport, not racing. There's no need for a car that goes more than 70mph. There's no need for a car that burns rubber.
I use a very old technology 1300cc car (probably equivalent in power to a more modern 1000 cc engine car). It has sufficient guts for my purposes, even when carrying 4 people + a load.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Power an electric car with a nuclear battery.
First .. how long is a mile? In real units?
.. how much is a gallon? In real units?
Then
When are 'merkins going to start using proper units?
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
Sorry to mention this, oh strange American folk (I'm in Australia), but generally, fuel consumption is expressed in lt/100km.
So that's 2.3lt/100km.
You know, my eight year old Hyundai Excel, four doors + hatch, air conditoning, carries my 4 person family about quite effectively, gets 5.5lt/100km (43mpg). I measured it for some years (it varied from 4.5 to 6.5). I don't even try that hard. And it's half way there.
I am stunned to learn the average American vehicle gets 21mpg, or 8.9 lt/100km. Gosh. Do they have special oil burning jets out the back or something?
"Cats like plain crisps"
It's very easy to see electricity as a viable alternative to oil based products for vehicle fuel. after all, electricity is clean, isn't it? Well not always. Granted an electric vehicle gives out no exhaust fumes, but we also need to consider how that electricity is made. The world is experiencing a considerable rise in the demand for electricity, and, despite all the hype, wind, solar, wave power etc can only fill a tiny propartion of that demand. Nuclear fuel is still unfashionable, so electricity generators are forced to look at hydro and fossil fuels (maily coal) to meet the demand. Hydro has its problems as it displaces peoples. In many parts of the develloping world, especially China and India coal is the major source of generating fuel. The burning of this coal creates horrendous amounts of acric pollution in many cities. So, electric cars can only be a long-term 'green' replacement for gasolean ones provided the world has a sufficient supply of 'clean' electricity: which it does not. We (the human race) need to have a complete mind change over, not just how we power our cars, but how we live our lives in general, and we must challenge our expectations of what we can reasonable expect from this planet of ours if we want it to remain somewhere worth living. Forget the car and take the bus - or walk!
They've published the Draft Competition Guidelines.
Lots of folks are knee-jerking with "what about electric vehicles?" Unfortunately, the Slashdot summary is misleading
There are performance specs too. The vehicle must go at least 80 mph for the 2-seater; 100 mph for the 4-seater. Braking 60-0 must be less than 170 ft. They don't require crash testing, but expect you to demonstrate that you've built something to contrmporaty standards for front and side impacts. The standard compliment of mirrors, reflectors, indicators and gauges are required as well.
The end of the document describes their objectives and how they came up with their requirements. It's a pretty easy document to read, and it gives you some insight into what they're trying to do (hint: it involves eventual production of the vehicle.)
I wonder how many "Slashdotters (who are likely also to be programmers are driven to the edge of insanity by our honourable editors' failure to close their punctuation...
( Redundancy is ) ^ n
Essentially we're getting 100mph for the transport, but the wanger extension is what is giving us 20mpg. People talk about safety etc, but really these are hedges against speaking the real reason; the perception that Real Men drive Hummers with gunracks, only faggots drive 1100cc Noddy cars.
I'm not quite buying your simplification, though, either: how do you account for the 59% of car purchases made by women? What's their issue, penis envy?
While it may be popular these days to try and pin all the country's (if not the entire world's) ills on a bunch of redneck, white, male, gun-toting, Hummer-driving, "flyover state"-ers, I don't think that reality backs that up. Your typical car buyer is female, and is looking for safety, performance (acceleration and handling, which in many people's minds is intertwined with safety), style, and somewhere significantly further down the list, environmental impact and fuel economy. While the guy driving a Hummer may make a nice target for ridicule, there aren't really enough of them to really matter compared to the legions of people driving mid-market cars which really don't have much in the way of a "penis factor" going for them.
Gas just doesn't cost enough for people to care more about mileage than about style. And to be honest, even if it went up by an order of magnitude, while you'd see cars become more efficient, I doubt that you'd really see people changing their fundamental views very much. We're not really talking about anything that's developed recently here; the same forces are at work today with cars, that led people a century or two ago to buy matched sets of horses to pull their coach. Two thousand years ago, there were probably Romans ogling each others' chariots -- when you have something that represents such a large investment (as personal transportation devices almost always are, regardless of the era), they almost automatically become status symbols.
If we ever get cars that on average get 100MPG, it'll be because the cost of fuel is $10 a gallon; even then, there will still be Hyundais and BMWs, econo-boxes and performance machines, minivans and maybe even a Hummer or two, because that's what people will want and have always wanted.
Given the choice between trying to change a deep-rooted social behavior and solving the technical problem of making a minivan/Hummer/whatever that gets 100MPG, I'd say the technical problem is far more feasible to solve.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I am stunned to learn the average American vehicle gets 21mpg, or 8.9 lt/100km.
Here people have decided that the supposed benefits of huge Galaxy-class land vessels are worth paying to refill every couple of days, because not only is there the long-standing male car culture here, but now women are using vehicles as a means of self-actualization, self-aggrandizement, self-empowerment, or whatever you want to call it.
We're perfectly willing to go for instant gratification rather than long-term sanity. Run up your credit cards, buy a Ford Annihilator, and have fun! It's the New American Way. Restraint is for pussies and foreigners.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Except that it isn't.
There already exists a car that can get 65 mpg - routinely - not on some secret test track. It has been available for about six years, and there are millions already on the roads in Europe. It's called the Renault Clio dCI and I have one. It is about the same size as any other super-mini and has a four star (out of five) European safety rating. It's quite lively - pulls away quickly and goes well over 80 mph. The Clio is not the only car of its class - there are others with similar performance and specification.
Why is this remarkable? It is not.
The only remarkable thing is that more people don't seem to know about this. Until fuel prices start to reflect the true cost of motoring, many people seem to prefer to bury their heads in the sand and continue to drive their gas-guzzling monsters.
And the X-prize? It sounds as though it shouldn't be too hard to hit that 100 mpg figure. The real challenge is the change of perception required from the public.
At one point around 1990, Austin in the UK produced a Montego (mid-sized saloon car) with a Perkins Diesel engine that could perform 100 MPG (note: British gallons) and 100 MPH (but not at the same time)
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Pictures of Austin Montego: http://www.austin-rover.co.uk/index.htm?sipanimon
Reference to the 100 MPG / 100 MPH Montego : http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?
(61hp & 14.5 seconds to hit 60 mph), and is impractical for roads that rely on highway driving.
...' and so on?
Thats siply not true. In Germany, where the higways are mostly unrestricted in speed, its still possible and practical to use that cars. There speeds like 100MPH are common, some people are even going 150MPH or more (these are not the economic cars -- oc course), still I'm alive and happy.
So what is your problem an an US-Higway, where 55 or 65 MPH are common? In Germany you are allowed to go about 60MPH on a rural road, and these economic cars do it very well. And yet, these economic cars were develloped in germany, and are one of the safest in their class.
Oh, well, the top speed of my economic car is 100MPH, yet I get it to 110MPH regulary (measured by GPS), and still not hitting the limit. How does your car? Are you even able to try it out? Or are you relying on your 'common sense' and 'people state that
Fivefold?????
Hmm... Let's see...
1 Gallon = 3.785 liters
100 Miles = 160.9 kms
So this equals to 42.5 km's per liter.
That is just 2-fold.. lots of cars are already sold that can do 20 km/l !!!
My Fiat Punto MultiJet requires 25km/l (58mpg unless I'm wrong) for its everyday real use, and it was produced in 2002. So I think that the goal is not that far.
CTRL + F Funny ---> I had you!!!
There are few cars on the market today, at least in the UK, which do less than 20mpg. I drive a large, heavy pickup with a big engine. I drive fast. I get over 30mpg normally (averaged over the last 10,000 miles). And that's without even trying to drive economically. Over 50mpg is not unusual in common cars.
One of the big problems is that Americans insist on high torque engines at low revs.
Gasoline engines simply doesn't work that way. You end up with gas-guzzling five liter V8s.
Diesel does work that way. It'll double your gas mileage with no noticeable difference in the car.
No sig today...
Simple:
1. Buy gallon of petrol/gas
2. Wait fifty years
3. Sell gallon of petrol to automotive museum for $50,000
4. Buy train ticket anywhere I damn well like
Better yet, pick any midsized overpowered v6 sedan; the 250-300hp range that is ever so popular these days. Build me a 100mpg vehicle that performs like that and I bet you will get people lining up for them.
Even with the dangers, see below, its high time we came around and brought vehicle standards up to new levels.
Dangers:
First, overlooked. If it cost less to drive people will drive even more. Urban sprawl would increase and traffic deaths would as well.
The used car market would implode if such technology appeared overnight. Such a change would probably be a boon in the short term for manufacturers because if the pricing were right and the vehicles looked like todays most people would switch. Another area that will see big hits is current lease holders of older engine tech cars and trucks. Throw in the multitude of people needed to support the current engine technologies and not all of those jobs would survive the changeover.
If this progressed into commercial vehicles then the government might have to act as the write off of capitalization from the rapid depreciation of the of older vehicles could put a crimp into tax generation.
The other concern for taxation is decreased use of fuel from gasoline and diesel sales. Governments won't stand for that so expect the taxes to increase thereby hitting anyone who cannot afford the new tech even harder.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
We need better designed cities, not better designed cars.
Cars are certainly the most flexible way to get around. But we should not have to use them for our daily commute through rush hour traffic or even for running most common errands or to go out and play or dine out.
The problem really is with the way we (esp. the US) design cities. Instead of spending money on public transit-oriented communities, it's much, much cheaper for the municipalities to just pave a stretch of concrete and let individual citizens pay for the cost, maintenance, and operation of personally-owned vehicles. On top of that, condo construction here is pretty lousy, whereas if single family home construction is lousy at least your immediate neighbors are farther away from the noise.
Unfortunately, we don't really have a simple way to measure how much energy people can save in cities with alternative transit as opposed to people who live in cities where they have to drive even to the nearest postal mailbox.
In the mean time, the exciting progress in the transportation field ought to be things like transit oriented design:
http://www.transitorienteddevelopment.org/
http://www.carfree.com/
Progress in these areas of urban development will get us closer to constructing sustainable colonies in space than any improvement in individually run cars.
http://www.google.com/search?q=100mpg
100 miles per gallon = 42.5143706 kilometers per liter
http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/press/Lupo_3L_in_Guine ss_World_Record
Looks like a production car to me. Where do I collect my prize for bringing this car to the world's attention? I could use the money to buy a nice Bugatti Verron.
It's an awesome engine, just need to get it finished up and built en masse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasiturbine
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/quasiturbine.htm
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yeah and those bastards killed Santa too!
Indecision is the key to flexibility.
Unfortunately in most of the U.S. diesel is currently more expensive than "regular" unleaded gas. While you may save money with your mileage, most folks don't look that far down the road.
This price difference is artificial. It's a result of the way the Federal (and to a lesser extent, some State) government taxes it.
Here's the issue: trucks (not light trucks, but big semis) do a huge amount of damage to the highways. Aside from frost/salt/washouts and other environmental damage, the biggest thing that kills roads is the high axle loads of semi trucks. Look at a road on which trucks aren't allowed (the G.W. Expressway in VA, or the Merritt in CT, and look at how old the pavement is, and compare it to a nearby freeway -- note the much newer pavement and/or ongoing construction. Cars do almost negligible damage to a well-constructed road.
Since almost all big trucks are powered by diesel fuel, the government at some point decided that making the tax on it higher than gasoline would be a convenient way of making sure that trucks pay for some of the road damage that they do. (Unfortunately they don't pay anything near the damage that they do to the highway system, and the taxpayers foot most of the bill, but I digress.)
But like most shortcuts taken by the government, this had the major unintended consequence of making diesel fuel artificially expensive for passenger vehicles -- or looking at it another way, it made gasoline engines, even though they're comparatively inefficient, much more attractive than they should be.
Just getting rid of the diesel tax, or making it the same as gasoline, isn't an option (at least not without some compensatory measure), because then we'd just be giving an even bigger handout to the OTR trucking industry than we already do.
Until the Federal government figures out some better way of taxing heavy trucks that use the Interstate highways, diesel in the U.S. is always going to be at a massive disadvantage, and our petroleum consumption is going to be far higher than it ought to be as a result. In terms of motor fuels, diesel is just better; it costs less (in terms of energy) to refine, and when used in an internal-combustion engine, you get more energy out of it per volume. With proper emissions equipment it's no more harmful than gasoline, either. The barriers to using it are mostly artificial.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I own a Honda Insight. Lifetime average: 66 MPG. I routinely get 75 MPG on freeway commutes, 80 MPG every once in a while.
I read a story about a guy who drove around the British island in an Insight and averaged somewhere in the 110 MPG ballpark (setting a record).
The xprize should be a little more far-reaching.
Gallon of what? Plutonium? Imperial gallon or US gallon? -- K