New X-Prize for Fuel Efficient Cars Announced

miowpurr writes "A new X-Prize for ultra fuel efficient cars has been announced. The winning car must 'carry four or more passengers and have climate control, an audio system and 10 cubic feet of cargo space. They also must have four or more wheels, hit 60 miles per hour in less than 12 seconds and have a minimum top speed of 100 miles per hour and a range of 200 miles. Those that qualify will race their vehicles in cross-country races in 2009 and 2010 that will combine speed, distance, urban driving and overall performance.'"

Comments

Less exciting

[philspear]

This is just not as exciting as the other X-prizes. Maybe more valuable, but still. Just saying.

Re:Less exciting

[gfxguy]

Maybe I'm just old, but having a competition for something that's actually practical and could somehow find it's way into the consumer market is a lot more exciting to me after all these contests that really don't benefit "real" people.

Re:Less exciting

[Bombula]

One reason why it's not exciting is that a number of outfits already have qualifying vehicles. That makes this more of an announcement of a Green Car Race two years in advance than throwing down the technology gauntlet and challenging teams to come up with something genuinely ground-breaking. Just as one example, Tesla Motors (www.teslamotors.com) plans to have a car substantially superior to the specs mentioned in this X-Prize in production by 2010: the WhiteStar.

Re:Less exciting

[jandrese]

I thought the Tesla Motors cars were all electric? How do you intend to go cross country with an all electric car? I don't think the rules will allow for you to chase it with a big generator truck to recharge the car every 200 miles. The way the rules are written, it sounds to me like your car is pretty much going to have to be gasoline or diesel powered because that's the only way you're going to be able to refuel it when you're 1000 miles from home. Sneaking in behind shopping malls or something every 200 miles and plugging it into an outside wall outlet is probably not going to work.

Re:Less exciting

[Bombula]

I don't think the rules will allow for you to chase it with a big generator truck to recharge the car every 200 miles ... Sneaking in behind shopping malls or something every 200 miles and plugging it into an outside wall outlet is probably not going to work.

So the other teams have big tanker trucks chasing their cars? Oh, that's right, there's a gasoline infrastructure in the United States so they'll be able to refuel. Well as it happens, there's an electrical infrastructure too, and vehicles like the Tesla Roadster carry a portable charger to enable plugging into to any ordinary power socket.

The only real concern here is recharge time making all-electric entrants less competitive in terms of overall speed.

Re:Less exciting

[OnlineAlias]

The Tesla doesn't have 4 seats or the cargo capacity, so it is out from the start.

Re:Less exciting

[redxxx]

But, there are strong(ish) market pressures to design and develop just this type of vehicle, and it will likely be about refinement rather than innovation, because plenty of platforms close to this already exist. I don't know, it seems like something plain old market pressure would bring about eventually, without the need for the x-prize. I hell, I doubt this would even have much of an effect on the car driving public, as I doubt it will get highly fuel efficient cars to market any sooner. It kinda seems like an X-Prize for making a really big, flat, HD TV. Companies are going to throw money at it anyway, they don't need to be inspired to do it. It does kinda set a benchmark for what is wanted, give designers specific goals, but I just don't think it'll matter too much.

Re:Less exciting

[0100010001010011]

Tesla Roadster carry a portable charger to enable plugging into to any ordinary power socket. An infrastructure and charger in place to give the tesla 600-8000 mile range (What I get out of my TDI) in 10 minutes (5 if I use the larger Semi nozzles).

It should be run like 'cannon ball run'. You drive non stop first team wins. I bet the winners will be in CA before Tesla is done with their second charge.

Re:Less exciting

[Bombula]

It should be run like 'cannon ball run'. You drive non stop first team wins.

I'm not sure what point a nonstop race proves. How often do people drive 3000 miles without stopping any longer than to refuel? Maybe truck drivers, but the race's vehicle specs didn't sound much like a semi's to me. Plus, I didn't see anything in the specs about the car requiring its own toilet facilities. Or maybe it'll just be astronauts in diapers driving?

Re:Less exciting

[tlhIngan]

I thought the Tesla Motors cars were all electric? How do you intend to go cross country with an all electric car? I don't think the rules will allow for you to chase it with a big generator truck to recharge the car every 200 miles. The way the rules are written, it sounds to me like your car is pretty much going to have to be gasoline or diesel powered because that's the only way you're going to be able to refuel it when you're 1000 miles from home. Sneaking in behind shopping malls or something every 200 miles and plugging it into an outside wall outlet is probably not going to work.

You could make the engine part a trailer. When you're doing your inter-city commutes, you'd just plug it in at work, plut it in at home, and go about your merry little business as a fully electric car.

When you want to go cross-country, you'd hook up the trailer to the car, and as necessary, it starts up, generates power for the battery, and shuts down, like hybrid cars. Except unlike hybrids, you're not carrying the whole engine and supporting systems (gas, cooling, exhaust, etc) with you everywhere you go. And like hybrids, it can work the engine where its most efficient. (The ICE is so inefficient, that it's way more efficient to use its mechanical power to generate electricity, and then use the electricity to move a vehicle - see the popular diesel-electic train).

Heck, if there's a standard for wiring up these trailers and cars together, a whole new industry is born - car companies can produce an all electric car and their standard trailer, and third parties can make their own trailers. Or rent a trailer if they don't go on long trips frequently enough to justify owning one (aren't most cars just used for the daily commute? In which case the plug in at office/home would work just fine).

Re:Less exciting

[LWATCDR]

Not really.
They seemed to have left out a lot of practical requirements.
Emissions and safety are the two big ones I see. All those requirements add a good bit of weight and influence the milage you can get from a motor. You also need to think about durability.
To get super high millage you could make a super light turbo diesel with no emissions but it wouldn't last more than say 40,000 miles and would never pass emissions. The build a super light frame that would not hold up all that well in a crash and you could have a winner but would never be a good car.

Re:Less exciting

[twistedsymphony]

I would think the Aptera Hybrid is much further along than Tesla's offerings, it already gets 330MPG but it's only a 2 seater, and a 3 wheeler... They could probably made a less efficient 4 seat/4 wheel model and call it a day.

The thing I like about it the most is that rather than trying to shoehorn good aero design onto something that looks like a typical car and ending up with something very ugly, they just embraced good aero design and made something that looks nothing like a modern car and is very sexy because of it.

Re:Less exciting

[jandrese]

Read the rest of my post. While there is an electrical infrastructure in the US, there's not (yet) a system of stations where you can pay to recharge an electrical car. You will forever be driving into a store or something and asking the shopkeeper if you can plug into an outlet. It's just not very practical.

Re:Less exciting

[Anonymous Coward]

The White Star is not the Tesla Roadster, it's a family vehicle from Tesla Motors (think electric minivan)... That one will fit the passenger and cargo requirement.

Re:Less exciting

[morgan_greywolf]

If you think this is not as exciting, then you don't know what a tall order it really is to have all those things the mainstream car category requires and make it really, truly more fuel efficient. Not even the current best Toyota Prius model really gets better gas mileage than conventional cars of comparable size and weight. For instance, the VW Jetta, Golf, and New Beetle all get 35 MPG City and 44 MPG Highway, which is an overall equivalent of about 38 MPG. The Prius gets 42 MPG City and 41 MPG Highway. Not really a significant savings considering the premium price tag the Prius carries compared to those cars.

Re:Less exciting

[Bombula]

I'm with you on this. Unfortunately, it's you and me and maybe 50 other people. There's just no way the other 300 million people in the country will consider buying one of these things any time soon.

Re:Less exciting

[AshtangiMan]

51

Re:Less exciting

[Russ Nelson]

If I lived in a warm climate where I commuted, I would DEFINITELY BUY an Aptera Hybrid. But I wonder about the performance of such a vehicle in the snow / slush / mud of Northern New York. I expect that I'll be buying a Subaru Hybrid, which you can bet Subaru is working on feverishly.

Re:Less exciting

[2nd Post!]

What? Haven't you seen Canonball Run?

They could make a movie/tv-show out of this. Week by week updates, blogs, everything!

Re:Less exciting

[AshtangiMan]

And to further the point, there has really been no innovation that has led to better mileage since the late 70s. At that point you could buy VW rabbit that got 35 mpg, a chevy citation that got a bit more than 40mpg, and a few others, one by renault IIRC (le car?), that were pretty good. Now it is 30 years later and that is still what we have, except now some of them are hybrid and really not doing much better than the high mileage IC counterparts. Perhaps this will spark innovation from more companies than the just the all electric leaders (aptera and tesla).

Re:Less exciting

[0100010001010011]

I do it at least once a month. Maybe not non-stop 3000 miles, but it extrapolates the problem.

My parents live 5 miles from me. Sometimes we go skiing when we meet up. So I hop in my car, drive 300 miles home. Tesla's now dead. So we wait X hours for it to charge, we're limited to skiing with in 150 miles (I doubt the skiing places will have a place for me to 'refil').

And no I don't drive non-stop. But when human 'refil and waste dumping' is on the same order of magnitude as a refilling. It takes me 10 minutes to fill, 10 minutes to 'dump', 10 minutes to 'refil' and that's a 30 minute stop. How far is 30 minutes of Tesla charging going to get me?

Re:Less exciting

[anexkahn]

The aptera already meets all this criteria....it gets 120 MPG without plugging it in, or you can charge it up at night and only use 1 gallon to go 350 miles...See: http://www.aptera.com/details.php for more detail.s

Re:Less exciting

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does a car need to have a top speed of 100 MPH when it's illegal in almost all (if not all) the countries where it will be used?
Why impose such an unnecessary restriction on the car's design when it's only arrogant tossers who like to speed?

Re:Less exciting

[Bruiser80]

Link is deceptive. Made my Firefox window shuck and jive like it was the 4th of July :-)

Re:Less exciting

[twistedsymphony]

I'm in the same situation, I live in NH and keep a 4 cylinder 4x4 on hand just for the really bad winter days (which we got an f-ton of this last winter). It'd be great to have something like this for my daily commute or for when I take a trip down to Boston.

Here's hoping they offer a more rugged version at a reasonable price in the near future.

Though considering I paid thousands in heating oil this winter, and I only have a 15 mile commute to work. I'm honestly much more interested in being efficient and energy independent in terms of my home than efficient with my car.

Re:Less exciting

[TooMuchToDo]

I think the better question to ask is, how long can you afford to have the ability to do a fuel-up turn around? The price of gas is more then likely going to reach $4/gal within the next 2-3 months. How expensive does gas have to get before your ability to fuel up extremely quickly is no longer that much of a benefit?

No, the Tesla Roadster can't charge up in 10 minutes (3.5 hours for full charge). But when I charge my Roadster (2009 waitlist), it will only cost me $4 to go 220 miles.

Re:Less exciting

[Radical Moderate]

Holy crap! Cooler than the Batmobile, and 130+ MPG! Sign me up!

Re:Less exciting

[Anonymous Coward]

Take that engine out of that old car and put it in a modern car and watch it not work on the 2-3x heavier vehicles now due to emissions standards, safety features and vehicle comforts. Having nearly the same fuel economy as back then with todays vehicles is kinda nice.

Re:Less exciting

[cayenne8]

"No, the Tesla Roadster can't charge up in 10 minutes (3.5 hours for full charge). But when I charge my Roadster (2009 waitlist), it will only cost me $4 to go 220 miles."

Cool! Man, I'd love to get these, but, I'd have to wait till they got a bit more in the $$ of a good Vette.

If you don't mind me asking...how much did/will you pay for it? Do you live in one of the cities that has the service locations nearby or will you have to have it towed to get it serviced?

Good luck on the Tesla. It is one of the coolest things I've seen....and the only green/economy car I've ever considered getting...since it has performance and looks.

Re:Less exciting

[gnasher719]

And to further the point, there has really been no innovation that has led to better mileage since the late 70s. At that point you could buy VW rabbit that got 35 mpg, a chevy citation that got a bit more than 40mpg, and a few others, one by renault IIRC (le car?), that were pretty good. Now it is 30 years later and that is still what we have, except now some of them are hybrid and really not doing much better than the high mileage IC counterparts. Perhaps this will spark innovation from more companies than the just the all electric leaders (aptera and tesla). What has improved a lot is fuel efficiency - how much work is done using a given amount of fuel. But on the other hand, car size and weight has grown dramatically in the same time, so a lot more work needs to be done by the engine to move an average car over the same distance. Then there is the problem with the SUV arms race. You are safer if your car is heavier than everyone else's, so everyone keeps buying bigger and heavier cars (note that the weight itself doesn't help, crash two four ton cars against each other and they are not better off than two 500kg cars. Being heavier than the other guy helps).

Re:Less exciting

[0100010001010011]

Because.
1) Electricity currently doesn't have a 'road' tax.
2) There isn't much 'demand' for electricity in of this nature.

Take a few million people, toss them on an already strained electrical grid. Have state and federal funding for new roads get cut in half and then lets see if it's still $4 for 200 miles.

Re:Less exciting

[ksheff]

When I visit my parents, I drive about 1000 miles and I only stop to get fuel and to use the toilet. With my current vehicle that's every 350-380 miles. The 200 mile range of the x-prize car is too short IMHO. They should try to make it 400-500 miles.

Re:Less exciting

[Anonymous Coward]

Sign me up.

Re:Less exciting

[ksheff]

I've seen Datsun ads from the 70s for a car that supposedly got 44mpg. I think it was a b210, but not quite sure. It was a two door hatchback.

Re:Less exciting

[jesse285]

Maybe I'm just old, but having a competition for something that's actually practical and could somehow find it's way into the consumer market is a lot more exciting to me after all these contests that really don't benefit "real" people. Well the point of view on this subject is to improve the living conditions for peoples on this earth and after that it on to Spaceship or space car.

Re:Less exciting

[TooMuchToDo]

I'll have to dig the link up for you (I believe CalCars or the Earth Policy Institute put it out), but because so little electricity is used at night, 84% of current vehicle energy use could be offset with electricity with no change in pricing or adverse affects on the electric distribution network. You would need to charge at night (midnight to 5am), but most people have their car in their garage at this time anyway.

So yes, electrical costs will remain close to the same. With regards to taxes, state and federal funding will switch to a permit model, where you pay a flat rate for your vehicle per year. This is because there is no way to track where you get your power from for your car (sure, they can monitor your home, but what about at work? your friend's house?). Even with the pessimistic presumptions you highlight in your post, it will still be more beneficial to have an electric car and deal with reduced range then to pay $4-5/gallon at the pump.

Re:Less exciting

[llZENll]

Wow, awesome idea. I think having a whole other trailer though is a bit overkill, perhaps you could make the ICE small enough that you could slide it in a special compartment in the trunk, under the hood, or under the car somewhere. Since the ICE would only be used for recharging it should be pretty light and small.

Re:Less exciting

[TooMuchToDo]

Total cost is $118K. $98K base price, all options, premium jet black, and I changed the leather seat colors. Also, they charge me $8K for being out of the California area to handle servicing the car.

Tesla hasn't given much details regarding how service is going to be handled, but the only major parts are the motor, the battery system, and the power regulator. Everything else is creature comfort. If something major goes wrong, I can always ship it back to California to be worked on (I'm in Chicago).

I used to own 2 Corvettes (a '99 and an '01), so good luck with getting one. They're monsters =) I wanted an Audi R8 http://www.audiusa.com/audi/us/en2/new_cars/Audi_R8.html but went with the Roadster due to it being environmentally friendly.

Re:Less exciting

[vigmeister]

Who says it's not exciting? When extreme numbers are involved (7 wins in a row, par example), even cycling becomes REALLY exciting :)

These guys may be the Lance Armstrongs of car racing... Except they are French, so they won't be as popular. And oh! the car doesn't have cancer although it has one less wheel that a 'regular' car does.

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/03/eco-marathon-08.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microjoule

Cheers!

Re:Less exciting

[0100010001010011]

I'm still holding out for Algae based or GTL based biodiesel.

Re:Less exciting

[torchdragon]

This is the exact concept I've been trying to instill on my cohorts. Design the engine and its power source separate. With an electric motor we have this choice. Make the power source modular so that you can hook in your batteries for around town or throw in the ICE for longer drives.

Making a prototype of this engine would be trivial compared to "engineering an entire car"

Why are we still thinking that everything HAS to be done as one single lump? Start with a beat up frame, an extension cord, and your parking lot.

If you know anything about electric motors then we should make this happen. I can only assume that a majority of the other people on Slashdot are just as sick of our current auto tech as we are. Why does it seem like we're waiting for someone to tell us that we can do this?

Re:Less exciting

[morgan_greywolf]

What has improved a lot is fuel efficiency - how much work is done using a given amount of fuel. But on the other hand, car size and weight has grown dramatically in the same time, so a lot more work needs to be done by the engine to move an average car over the same distance. No, it hasn't. I've worked in the industry with the engineers. Trust me. Pound for pound, when comparing apples-to-apples, newer cars on average, are lighter, not heavier. a 1970s VW Rabbit and it's modern-day equivalent, the VW Golf get the same gas mileage and weight is just about the same -- I'm so confident that this is the case, that I didn't even Google it, but I invite you to. When they've had to increase weight for safety and emissions features, they've compensated in other ways by using lighter metal alloys, replacing steel parts with plastic, and by just plain ol' making holes in the body in order to lighten the cars (no, I'm not kidding).

Re:Less exciting

[Hawthorne01]

Dang it, and me with no mod points.

That's a great point: Once you start to figure in 5 mph bumpers, side-impact protection, rollover safeguards, airbags and seatbelts, it becomes harder to reach that 100mpg milestone. Making tinfoil and baling twine get 100mpg isn't going to help production cars one bit. And then there's the issues with emissions and beyond that, construction costs and total cost of ownership. A 100mpg car that's built from expensive, hard-to-produce materials would be counter-productive to the idea of this prize.

Re:Less exciting

[FinestLittleSpace]

You have a fair point but it's not that simple - you are missing the point of the meaning of top speed and why it is selected higher than speed limits.

1. In Germany it's not, which is by far one of the most famous car-making places... so not insignificant.
2. If you are in trouble on the motorway, if it's really blocked and you've got an ambulance behind, it is good to be able to pull away. If you are going 70 and a car behind is going 90 and there's no room to move out the way, you'll be pleased of another 10mph to push you out and to safety.
3. A top speed denotes that you will be at 'redline', which means that the gearbox won't go any higher and your engine won't rev any higher. You don't want your car to have to redline at the country's perfectly acceptable speed limit - heck, you shouldn't drive at redline for more than a few seconds with most engines.

Even my 1972 MG Midget has a top speed of 96mph. Mine's modified heavily so it could cope with it, but would I take a stock Midget to 96? God no, it'd be pushing the engine too far.

Re:Less exciting

[Chosen Reject]

you could make a super light turbo diesel with no emissions but it wouldn't last more than say 40,000 miles and would never pass emissions.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but if it had no emissions, how would it not pass emissions inspections?

Re:Less exciting

[LWATCDR]

Yes, no, and maybe. In the 70s car with aluminum engine blocks, fuel injection, anti-lock brakes, and traction control where very exotic and expensive stuff, even science fiction. Now they are cheap. I just want people to have reasonable expectations of this.
What I don't want to hear but know that I will is this.
"They had a 100 MPG car that won the X-Prize but I can't buy it! The government, oil companies, space aliens, and Fox News are in a massive conspiracy to prevent people from buying!"
When the truth is that it costs $250,000 miles, will crumble to dust if a shopping cart bumps into it in a parking lot, and requires a complete overhaul every 20,000 miles.

On a positive note some good ideas may come from this that will be practical. VW is going to produce a TDI hybrid that should get close to 70 MPG and be totally practical.

Just to show what you can do when practicality isn't a requirement. In the 80s F1 engines could make more than 1,000 hp from a 1.5 liter engine. Don't ask how much it cost or how long it would run but it would do it.

Re:Less exciting

[Grishnakh]

You could always trade some battery capacity for a gasoline fuel cell and fuel tank.

Re:Less exciting

[Grishnakh]

I don't know about this flat rate stuff you talk about. It makes too much sense, and governments here in the USA aren't known for that. Besides, it would be unfair for people who drive occasionally to pay the same rate as someone who drives a lot, especially if the fee is high (to cover the loss in revenue from millions of people not buying gasoline any more).

Currently, they charge taxes by adding it to fuel (as well as taking it from federal income taxes). But some places, like Oregon, have proposed forcibly installing GPS devices in peoples' cars to track the number of miles in-state they drive and charge them accordingly.

So I anticipate that many states will insist on installing government-owned meters in peoples' homes to be connected to electric car chargers, so that they can be taxed appropriately based on how much electricity they use to charge their cars. In addition, these states will set up a huge, bureaucratic agency to enforce this, and to look for "cheaters", to routinely conduct surprise inspections to make sure people haven't tampered with the meters or bypassed them in any way, etc. To pay for all this, the taxes on electricity used for car-charging will be extremely high, causing the usage of electric cars to be even higher than our current gas-powered ones now. This is an optimistic scenario. A more pessimistic one has the Federal government doing all this with a branch of the IRS.

Re:Less exciting

[LWATCDR]

Emissions is common short had for mission control devices.

Re:Less exciting

[TooMuchToDo]

You make some excellent points, although I think the flat rate model would work. It's just a matter of increasing efficiencies while at the same time spreading the cost fairly.

Re:Less exciting

[Grishnakh]

Yeah, it would certainly be a lot more efficient, though I'm not sure how you'd make it fair. For an extreme case, consider someone who has a "weekend car", a car they very rarely drive, either because it's a spare, or a small sports car, etc. Contrast that with someone who drives 50,000 miles per year. With the gasoline tax averaging at about $0.40/gallon in 2002 according to one web page, person B pays about $1000/year in taxes towards road upkeep (neglecting the contribution from federal income tax, which is stupid since people should pay by usage), while person A pays $20 if he drives only 1000 miles (figures assume 20 mpg fuel economy).

Of course, it'd probably make sense to just charge everyone $250/year flat-rate for having a car, since it'd be a lot less than paying for all the bureaucratic overhead of having taxing agencies running around ensuring compliance by individuals, millions of meters installed at charging locations, etc. I think I read somewhere that the IRS spends 1/3 of its revenue just operating itself. What a waste.

But, being the pessimist that I am when it comes to social or governmental topics, I don't foresee a bright future for electric vehicles for this very reason.

Re:Less exciting

[Your Pal Dave]

Seems to me that you would want additional cargo space on a long road trip. A removable ICE would take away space when you want it the most. The beauty of the trailer approach is that the trailer could be designed to provide a modest amount of additional cargo capacity in addition to the auxillary power.

Re:Less exciting

[kesuki]

They could always use aligned carbon nano tubes... supposedly you can get them quite a bit stronger than aluminum for the same weight very spendy, but if the roll bar and side impact beams are carbon nanotube you could make a safe, but light roll cage to protect the occupants, without adding as much weight as steel would use.

but like you said, if it's not in the requirements they probably wont do it. also, carbon nano tubes are hardly mass production techniques, especially since it takes a whole day for 1 factory to produce 1 sheet of non-aligned carbon nano tubes. perhaps nano-production techniques will get better, but right now they're still an early, unproven material.

Re:Less exciting

[Rei]

If price is the issue, there are several $30k highway-speed EVs coming out soon (the Mitsubishi MiEV, the VentureOne, the Aptera Typ-1e, the Subaru G4e, and so on).

Anyways, as to the charge time issue, it's only really a limiting factor for the "backwards" EV companies like Tesla that use laptop batteries rather than automotive li-ions. Automotive li-ions (phosphates, titanates, etc) are perfectly capable of fast charging. Several vehicles are designed for 10-15 minute charges, such as the Phoenix SUV/SUT and the G4e (and R1e) (yes, it takes cooling). Now, that kind of fast charge needs a fast charger, which needs either a strong three-phase power supply or a battery bank -- but that's still cheaper than a gas station on a pump vs. charger basis.

As for existing infrastructure, there are RV parks all across the nation. If they have power at all, it's generally *at least* 120V/30A. Many, however, have split-phase 120V (effectively 240V), 50A. For an energy efficient vehicle like the Aptera, that's enough to be a reasonably fast charge**.

** AFAIK, the Aptera will not, by default, support RV outlets. But I believe the MiEV will; it has a wide range of charging options.

Re:Less exciting

[Rei]

So yes, electrical costs will remain close to the same.

If anything, they'd drop. You're increasing the profit margin on power companies, as they get to sell more electricity without having to build new infrastructure.

Here's that link you were looking for.

As for what I'll be paying when I get my Aptera next year, with my electricity rates, it'll cost me half a penny per mile (at 55 mph). Compare that to what you pay for gas! And that other big car cost, maintenance? With an EV, I'll have one belt, no radiator, no exhaust system, no muffler, no spark plugs, no cylinders, no transmission, no valves, no catalytic converter, no pumps, not even any motor oil. Oh, and lithium phosphate batteries, like it uses, are typically rated for 10+ years and 7000+ charge cycles (and even then, all that means is that you lose some range). The only moving parts in the drivetrain are the motor driveshaft, one belt, and three wheels. In short, the energy cost per mile is a tiny fraction of what it is for gasoline vehicles, and the the maintenance costs are likely to be as well.

Re:Less exciting

[LWATCDR]

Also that would make a really bad roll cage. The problem with Carbon fiber and I bet with carbon nano tubes is when they fail the shatter! While you would really not want your roll cage to deform it is muc better if it deforms a little instead of shattering.

Re:Less exciting

[kesuki]

well the thing is carbon nanotubes are very different from carbon fiber...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fullerene#Carbon_nanotubes

"Their unique molecular structure results in extraordinary macroscopic properties, including high tensile strength, high electrical conductivity, high ductility, high resistance to heat, and relative chemical inactivity"

carbon fiber is made from graphite and "Graphite is a crystalline material"

Crystals shatter bucky tubes (aka carbon nanotubes) bend before they break

so no they don't shatter, the main problem is producing them, and aligning them to create greater structural strength

Re:Less exciting

[LWATCDR]

Interesting. Carbon fiber is actually pretty flexible before you add the resin it after all a fiber. I was pretty sure that the resin made if brittle. Hey if bucky tubes can deform like metal then that is great. I look forward to it being available to mere mortals someday.

Re:Less exciting

[ncc74656]

So the other teams have big tanker trucks chasing their cars? Oh, that's right, there's a gasoline infrastructure in the United States so they'll be able to refuel. Well as it happens, there's an electrical infrastructure too, and vehicles like the Tesla Roadster carry a portable charger to enable plugging into to any ordinary power socket.

Refueling either of my current cars takes maybe 4-6 minutes. Recharging a Tesla Roadster most likely takes something closer to 4-6 hours, not minutes. Its 200-mile range won't even go to the nearest major city from here. Its average speed on a cross-country trip will suck big hairy balls without a range extender of some sort...is such a thing even available for it?

Car Must Be 100 MPG+

[Zabu]

Not mentioned in the summary.

Re:Car Must Be 100 MPG+

[Tyndmyr]

Also not mentioned...10Mil prize. Not bad at all, though I suspect that if a car that efficient could be designed for that price, it probably already would exist. Also, the prize is split between "mainstream" and "alternative" cars. The above restriction was for the mainstream category, which I imagine will be acheived later.

Re:Car Must Be 100 MPG+

[Anonymous Coward]

One other requirement that would be nice: if the cars could use SUVs as a source of fuel that would be awesome.

Re:Car Must Be 100 MPG+

[hamelis]

Not bad at all, though I suspect that if a car that efficient could be designed for that price, it probably already would exist.

This is based on the assumption that markets work efficiently. The only place markets work efficiently is in Economics textbooks. In real life, it is often easier and safer to just replicate what the guy before you did. Business has huge inertia 'We do it this way because that's the way we did it before and it worked well enough.' Risk-takers, people who want to try new ideas, are not rewarded ('you spent how much, on that? you're fired!'), or often simply not given an opportunity to make mistakes.

Re:Car Must Be 100 MPG+

[CheeseTroll]

To put the prize money in perspective, automakers typically spend hundreds of millions developing a new car, and probably expect to gain more than 10 million in profits.

That said, the X-Prize doesn't demand cool styling, bumper-to-bumper warranty, or a nice paint job, so the entrants could cut several corners in the design.

Re:Car Must Be 100 MPG+

[MickLinux]

On the contrary, the mainstream category may well be easier to win, for several reasons:

  (1) Prize goes to the most sales, from the article. Mainstream will probably sell better.
  (2) Initial design is more difficult. Therefore, fewer entries will be made. That makes it easier to win.
  (3) Prize is definitely possible. One obvious way to do it, is to place electric drive (with clutch) in the front wheels, and gas drive in the back wheels. That gives you better acceleration, better top speed, and much better fuel performance. Now stick stable Li-ion batteries in there, and you should be able to meet your performance specs.

    Design your car to be based around a standard car frame (such as a mini pickup truck), and you should be able to make use of already-existing mass production (thus, cheap price). That is, you import the parts you want from a standard automaker, and rework the new parts.

    Honestly, I hope this does result in some large fuel reduction. Wind/Nuclear/Hydroelectric-powered cars, here we come (I hope)!

Re:Car Must Be 100 MPG+

[SrmL]

For the Non-US: 100 MPG = 2.35 l/100 km

Re:Car Must Be 100 MPG+

[chuck]

Yes, my car satisfies the requirements in the summary. :)

Re:Car Must Be 100 MPG+

[nasor]

Exactly. If anyone knew how to design this sort of 100+ MPG, four-passenger, highway-capable fantasy car *they would already be selling it*.

Re:Car Must Be 100 MPG+

[Whiteox]

Thank you. Isn't there a production Pugeot diesel that gets close to that anyway.. around 3.0 l/100km?

Re:Car Must Be 100 MPG+

[phaustus]

Johnathon Goodwin has been doing very exciting work with converting cars and trucks to use bio-diesel (from processed to straight from the fryer) and hydrogen providing a significant increase in power and gas mileage and a significant decrease in emissions of the stock gas version, all with 90% existing technology.

It seems that there is a belief that high power, high gas mileage, and low emissions are all mutually exclusive. He is proving this to be wrong.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/120/motorhead-messiah.html

Re:Car Must Be 100 MPG+

[doesnothingwell]

They can get laidoff employees to push it. Progressive sponsored a stadium around here and a couple a months later gave 30 people the boot. I am sure the ceo gave himself another $2.6 million for the idea. I can hardly wait to see how many get sacked this time, shareholders get rich, customers and employees get (too depressing to consider)

Re:Car Must Be 100 MPG+

[Sensible Clod]

You mean like this?

Or maybe you wanted a 150 MPG, 5 passenger car.

But then, manufacturers don't always want to sell efficient cars.

At least

[d3ac0n]

The requirements are reasonably realistic as far as the car specs go. Sounds like an ordinary mid-sized sedan to me. Let's hope we get some good entrants!

Re:At least

[Anonymous Coward]

"The winning car must 'carry four or more passengers and have climate control, an audio system and 10 cubic feet of cargo space. They also must have four or more wheels, hit 60 miles per hour in less than 12 seconds and have a minimum top speed of 100 miles per hour and a range of 200 miles"

I think pretty much any modern car with a decent engine can handle that. Maybe a hummer?

Re:At least

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can find me a Hummer that gets 100+ MPG, I'll buy it from you.

Re:At least

[HTH NE1]

If you can find me a Hummer that gets 100+ MPG, I'll buy it from you. Does free-fall count?

Re:At least

[Ant P.]

I didn't see anything in the above rules about size, or more specifically, what happens if someone enters a sailboat on wheels into the competition.

Fuel Restrictions?

[ryanguill]

I think this is great and is going to have a lot more impact on our daily lives than the space prize. It does seem like quite a challenge though. Are there any restrictions on the type of fuel though? Does it have to use regular gas? Can it use anything that can be measured in gallons?

Re:Fuel Restrictions?

[truthsearch]

I imagine it must be regular gas. The car must be production-ready and "consumer friendly." It's also race cross-country, so refueling with anything but regular gas every few hundred miles would be quite a hassle.

Re:Fuel Restrictions?

[truthsearch]

Actually I'm completely wrong.

Re:Fuel Restrictions?

[fugue]

Yes, my first thought is that it is far too restrictive. Why so much emphasis on incremental improvements to our shortsighted transportation infrastructure when you need only look at Amsterdam to see something infinitely better: a completely clean solution (after a (negligible) manufacturing cost) that would more or less completely solve our obesity-and-health-care disaster, our civic-planning-and-urban-sprawl disaster, and our road rage issues as well.

No, I'm not suggesting that we eliminate cars entirely. But if 5% of our population used a car for trips under 10 miles, it wouldn't matter if they all drove FUVs on longer trips. It would solve a lot more than just our energy problem.

Re:Fuel Restrictions?

[drew]

I believe you can use anything you want. The descriptions I've read about this were all written before the formal announcement, but basically you have to be able to go 100 miles while producing as much pollution (or less) as you would generate by burning a gallon of gas. So they have conversion tables for various other possible fuels, or for electrically powered vehicles (e.g. getting x kW-h from your power company is equivalent to y gallons of gasoline.)

From what I've heard about it so far, I'm impressed, because it seems like they are focusing on actual solutions instead of neat tricks, so e.g. the guy who was getting a lot of press for converting Hummers to get 50 MPG couldn't enter because he would have to also account for the compressed hydrogen and other energy sources that go into the 50 MPG figure that all the magazines were so quick to parade around. It also knocks out vehicles like the Tesla roadster, because lets face it, you and I know that it takes just as much energy to move a 3 ton vehicle using electricity as it does with gasoline, even if the rest of the country hasn't figured that out yet.

On the other hand, the four wheels bit is new from the last I heard. That will knock out the company (Aptera) that looked like it was going to be the leading contender.

Re:Fuel Restrictions?

[Anonymous Coward]

epic fail

MPG?

[truthsearch]

carry four or more passengers and have climate control, an audio system and 10 cubic feet of cargo space. They also must have four or more wheels, hit 60 miles per hour in less than 12 seconds and have a minimum top speed of 100 miles per hour and a range of 200 miles.

My car does that now. The summary left out the most important piece of information: the car must get 100 MPG or more.

Re:MPG?

[Marc Desrochers]

Let's not forget the other important aspect of this competition; the award is also for the most "production ready" car. COming up with a 100MPG car is one thing, but make it inexpensive enough to mass produce is the real objective here.

Re:MPG?

[mnmn]

Are those American passengers or Japanese?

That'll make quite a difference.

Re:MPG?

[Anonymous Coward]

Considerably - I'm 6'4" and weigh just over 250lbs - and I go to the gym not every day but almost. I could stand to lose some weight - but I'm built up like a rugby player.

I'd suspect I'm at least twice as big as the average Japanese - even though i probably weigh less than the average american

Re:MPG?

[Mongoose Disciple]

Considerably - I'm 6'4" and weigh just over 250lbs - and I go to the gym not every day but almost. I could stand to lose some weight - but I'm built up like a rugby player.

I'd suspect I'm at least twice as big as the average Japanese - even though i probably weigh less than the average american

Man. Americans aren't that fat. On average.

(Not that I'm saying you're fat, but over 250 lbs on most people would be.)

Re:MPG?

[Anonymous Coward]

The average weight is 70 pounds less than that.

Re:MPG?

[mikelu]

Or Americans and [insert any other nationionality]. What we in the states really need is a car that auto-liposuctions and runs off of the fat...

Re:MPG?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but 50 pounds of that is e-penis.

Re:MPG?

[ah802]

Har: my old Honda S600 (600 cc, ps there was a 360cc engine in Japan) could do all this at 60 mpg, wouldn't be a stretch to change out the 4 SU carbs for something a bit more modern and thrifty. In fact my Sunbeam Imp and Austin A40 would do the job... at 65 mpg, it wouldn't be hard to economize; which brings to question what ever happened to cheap thrifty cars?

Re:MPG?

[CodeBuster]

They mean four sumo wrestlers OR four Americans, your choice.

Re:MPG?

[bdcrazy]

what ever happened to cheap thrifty cars?

Safety and Emission standards.

Re:MPG?

[Grishnakh]

Exactly. Also remember, fat is far less dense than bone or muscle, so a 6'4" person will naturally weigh a lot more than an average-height (~5'6") person just because of their musculoskeletal system. 250 pounds is HUGE for a 5'6" person, whereas it's just stocky for a 6'4" one. Those 6'6"+ NFL players all weigh around 250 lbs or more, and they're in great shape.

100-mpg vehicle !

[Eric Pierce]

The summary fails to mention that the goal is a 100-mpg vehicle! Kind of need that in the summary or the TITLE.

ER

Re:100-mpg vehicle !

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was a kid back in the late 70s, early 80s, there was a show called That's Incredible. I remember one episode where some college kids transformed a carborated 4 passenger car into a car that got 100mpg. I never heard about their research since.

Re:100-mpg vehicle !

[MarkGriz]

"I remember one episode where some college kids transformed a carborated 4 passenger car into a car that got 100mpg. I never heard about their research since"

Cue oil company/govt conspiracy theories in 3...2...1....

Abuse of rules

[gentimjs]

Unless they add in a stipulation for some kind of 'maintained speed', I can think of dozens of ways to abuse the rules ...

Re:Abuse of rules

[Alexpkeaton1010]

From TFA:

Those that qualify will race their vehicles in cross-country races in 2009 and 2010 that will combine speed, distance, urban driving and overall performance.
You could abuse the rules, but will you still win the race?

technology advances

[phoenixwade]

I think battery technology is advancing fast enough to make the listed criteria too easily attainable by 2010 or 2011. Why not make the requirements difficult so as to promote some really groundbreaking new technology. The criteria as set is essentially the same as needed for a comercially viable pure electric (assuming the price is competitive too....) I think that an "X" prize should be at the very limits of technology, this one is more of a "P" prize.

Why 100 mph minimum speed?

[bihoy]

Speed limits are well below that.
Wouldn't 75 or 80 mph allow for a more feasible result?

Re:Why 100 mph minimum speed?

[norkakn]

It's really not fun to drive a car near its maximum speeds. (Acceleration goes to hell). And, at some point, someone will probably want to go 75 up a hill.

Re:Why 100 mph minimum speed?

[Falstius]

I suspect your reasoning is right, but it is also forward looking to have a 100MPH top speed. As more automated controls are added to cars, highway speeds of 100MPH would be reasonable.

Re:Why 100 mph minimum speed?

[427_ci_505]

Sometimes you need acceleration, even at relatively high speeds.
For that you need power.

More power increases the top speed.

Re:Why 100 mph minimum speed?

[phoenixwade]

I suspect your reasoning is right, but it is also forward looking to have a 100MPH top speed. As more automated controls are added to cars, highway speeds of 100MPH would be reasonable. Is 100 mph reasonable on the Autobahn?

Re:Why 100 mph minimum speed?

[khallow]

I'm not really sure what you are trying to ask. 100 MPH is a reasonable speed for the German Autobahn (at a glance it appears that the generic recommended speed is 130 km/s which is slower). Most other roads have speed limits far short of 100 MPH.

Re:Why 100 mph minimum speed?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, AC, but could someone mod parent up?

With autonomous control on modern highways, it would not be unreasonable to have a 'peloton' of like sized vehicles traveling at high speeds. The vehicles would all mesh network to keep track of safety correlated data (tire pressure and temperature, brake temperature, etc..) and use combined sensing to increase tracking accuracy on the roadway. The increased aerodynamic efficiency will save a lot of fuel. I hope 100mph speeds under autonomous control will be achieved in my lifetime. When I hit geezer age, I want the option of having a car that drives itself.

Re:Why 100 mph minimum speed?

[hardburn]

100mph (and well beyond) is reasonable if:

• The cars allowed to drive that fast have regular maintenance inspections
• People who are allowed to drive that fast have stringent license requirements
• The hiway is designed without tight bends
• The road is made of a material that can take the wear

No automated controls are necessary. As long as the cars are in good operating condition and everyone is moving the same direction, speeds well in excess of 150mph are well within human abilities.

The problem in the US is that nobody wants to be forced to do good maintenance or to increase licensing restrictions, the hiway bends are too tight, and the roads aren't thick enough to take the abuse. None of which has been a problem for Germany.

Re:Why 100 mph minimum speed?

[bzipitidoo]

I have driven a car that has a top speed of 78 mph. By the book, its 0-60 mph time is 30 seconds. It's 18 seconds to go from 0-50 and 12 seconds to go from 50 to 60. Slow, but this is still better than a fully loaded 18 wheeler. The car gets about 40 mpg. If you can restrain yourself to 50 mph, it will get 46 mpg. We have even taken this car on long trips of 800 plus miles. You get used to its limitations.

I think their 0-60 in 12 seconds is too restrictive. What's the point of that kind of acceleration? So we can jackrabbit out from stoplights? People have become accustomed to thinking of anything that takes more than 10 seconds as slow. And our roads could be better designed. Stoplights every mile on a road meant for 55+ mph are awful no matter what acceleration your car has, but they're especially cruel to slow moving vehicles. Those can take a mile to get up to the speed limit. Making everyone go from 0 to 60 and back to 0 every 2 or 3 miles is murder for fuel economy no matter what car is used. I think 15 or even 18 seconds would be just fine, and any blame for situations where faster acceleration is desirable should go to the road, not the cars. 18 seconds is still plenty fast enough to get around a slow truck.

This desire to go 75 up a hill is just another classic way to waste gas. Roll with the hills, don't fight them. I've also observed that most drivers waiting at a red light often take a full second or more to realize the light has changed.

Re:Why 100 mph minimum speed?

[CaptnMArk]

Safe? Yes.

It's not reasonable because fuel/energy consumption goes way up.

Re:Why 100 mph minimum speed?

[gnasher719]

This desire to go 75 up a hill is just another classic way to waste gas. Roll with the hills, don't fight them. I've also observed that most drivers waiting at a red light often take a full second or more to realize the light has changed. That is something where I would actually like some serious scientific experimentation. The way I learnt it, you usually spend fuel on rolling resistance (linear with speed), running the engine (quadratic with RPM, so you want to use a higher gear at lower RPM), and wind/air resistance (fourth power of speed, that's why going 50mph is much cheaper than 75mph). But when you go uphill, the additional energy you need to move the car uphill is stored and will be reused when you drive downhill, so 75mph uphill should not be any less efficient than 75mph on a straight. You spend a lot of fuel, of course, but you get it back when you go downhill.

Re:Why 100 mph minimum speed?

[hardburn]

Cut out the worst 25-50% drivers and improve public transportation (which you'd have to do anyway under this plan), and energy consumption is far less of a problem.

Much of the rest can be taken care of by good engine tuning (particularly the camshaft timing). American and Japanese cars are usually tuned to get optimal gas millage when they're driven at a constant speed of 60-70mph. German cars are usually around 100mph.

By far, the two largest source of carbon output are oil/coal burning for electricity and driving 5 days a week during rush hour. Those are the first two places to start optimizing, not highway or recreational use. Even if all the cars on the road were Priusen (you try coming up with the plural of Prius) driven by hypermillers, the carbon footprint of rush hour traffic would still be large. This X-Prize won't change that, as 100mpg isn't that high of a target, and I doubt any new interesting techniques will come out of it. Double or triple that, and you might get somewhere.

Re:Why 100 mph minimum speed?

[Don853]

Any reason why air resistance wouldn't be related to square of speed? Not saying that it isn't, but the generic wind speed / pressure equation I'm familiar with has a 2nd power term, and I'd always assumed that to be the same for cars.

Re:Why 100 mph minimum speed?

[norkakn]

Merging in city traffic with crazy drivers requires decent acceleration.
In general, I agree with you though.

Re:Why 100 mph minimum speed?

[bzipitidoo]

I don't have the data handy, but as I recall the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) operates most efficiently at somewhere between 50% and 70% of maximum load. To stay in this sweet spot, you'd actually want to hold the gas pedal steady, not hold the vehicle's speed steady like a cruise control does. So that means the car will slow down on the ups, and speed back up on the downs. Trying to keep the speed steady wastes gas on both sides of the hill. On the up, you may have loaded the engine enough that it's operating outside its best area, but that depends heavily on how overpowered the car is. Sports and muscle cars might do very well under more load, but the average car won't. If the down is steep enough that your foot is completely off the gas pedal, and the car would actually roll downhill faster if you shifted to neutral, all that energy you've stored by going uphill fast is now being wasted. In that case it doesn't matter what kind of engine you have. Think also how a roller coaster ride works.

There have been experiments on this and other ways of saving gas. A tried and true but tiresome and annoying way to save gas is Pulse and Glide. Because most cars have a little extra power to deal with hills, headwinds, passing situations and the like, they will operate a bit below the optimum at steady speed on flat ground. So the driver can "pulse", that is, accelerate slowly to some target maximum speed, and then "glide", which means shut the engine off and coast in neutral until reaching some target minimum speed. Best done with a stick shift so you can roll or bump start the car as they call it, and not use the starter. Then you repeat. P&G has been known since the 1950's.

crosscountry urban ?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you test cars designed for an urban environment by sending them into a cross country race ? and people wonder why American auto makers have lost their way, perhaps they could test the space shuttle by seeing how well it performs as a boat

Re:crosscountry urban ?

[nschubach]

Well.... http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=14529 They kind of already do that. It's not necessarily a boat, and they test parts, and not the whole shuttle (that I know of) but it's close.

More practical than other X prizes

[Colonel Korn]

Sure, it's less exciting on a sci-fi-this-is-awesome level, but it seems to me like the most practical of the X prizes. This is the first that could very conceivably have a massive effect on worldwide transportation and even politics and the global economy in the next decade. What other x prize is tied so closely to the major environmental concerns of the day?

Maybe fewer people will follow the prize closely, but I suspect that more will follow its aftermath.

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[nschubach]

I guess that would depend on what you consider a major environmental concern. Getting as many people off my planet is the top of my list. ;)

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[electrictroy]

This "race" will likely include Honda Civic and Toyota Prius hybrids.

As you said, nothing too terribly exciting.

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[hardburn]

Exactly. You could probably get in with a small diesel-powered car and make some drastic weight reductions. Getting 100mpg isn't that hard if you're willing to rip off the doors/interior carpet/dashboard plastics/etc.

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[strabes]

My friend converted his hybrid into a plug-in and now gets over 100mpg without removing the doors, carpets, or anything.

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[diGitalRchitect]

I don't think there is much likelihood that this prize will have any major impact on an environmental level. Addressing fuel economy globally is not at all about creating the most efficient technology. It will be about creating the most mass producible solution. The best solution will be the one that relies on the most abundant resources.

We see contention now in the number of hybrid electric vehicles that can be produced, because they all depend on a limited supply of some common parts. The more Prius vehicles produced means the fewer HEVs that can be produced by other manufacturers. Doesn't the Tesla run on something like 100 laptop batteries. That means that for each one, 100 fewer laptops can be produced. One factory produces seemless containment units for nuclear reactors. They produce 8 a year. That means that only 8 reactors based on that technology can be opened each year. Wind power is more viable solution for global impact because the materials for turbines are easily acquired, even if the power source is unreliable.

I suspect that this will produce a nice pet project for enthusiasts, but not one that will have a large impact.

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[CaptMoroni]

I'm not sure how practical this even is. They seem to have left off one very serious requirement that would be directly affected by the effort. The vehicle should also be required to pass the mandated crash tests. It's probably not that hard to build a car that will get 100mpg. It's probably a bit harder to do that while also including sufficient mass around the occupants to protect them.

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[TooMuchToDo]

Li-Ion pack? Or NiMH? If NiMH, he could swap the pack out for a higher-density Li-Ion pack, which could also reduce the weight.

/EAA-PHEV mailing list lurker

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[Sensible Clod]

The Audi A2 can (or should I say "could" since it was discontinued) do 128 MPG, using imperial gallons, which works out to almost exactly 100 miles per US gallon. They accomplished this mostly by making the car out of aluminum.

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[cayenne8]

"The Audi A2 can (or should I say "could" since it was discontinued) do 128 MPG, using imperial gallons, which works out to almost exactly 100 miles per US gallon. They accomplished this mostly by making the car out of aluminum."

Did it 'die' because of the 0-60mph in 12 seconds thing (as mentioned in the article)?

I mean...something like that would get you run over on most city streets and absolutely killed on the highway. Not to mention it isn't very fun to dive if it is that weak.

:-(

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because it's mainly using the electricity stored from an electrical power plant. Big deal. It's now an electric car with an ICE for a backup power source. It would be more useful to be able to get 100mpg using just the energy provided by the fuel (diesel or gasoline).

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[Don853]

0-60 in 12 seconds was commonplace 15 years ago and comparable to the original 1950's Chevy Corvette. This fascination with overpowered cars seems relatively new. I think it's because people don't want to bother getting off their cell phone and looking over their shoulders to merge. Of course, that's why the fleet average fuel economy is in the low 20's. I can't make myself feel that sorry for people bitching about gas prices when they're voluntarily getting 15mpg driving some giant SUV with a V-8 and an automatic transmission and flooring it to red lights in traffic. (like the cayenne, perhaps ;)

Either way, it won't get you killed on the highway if you plan a little in advance when driving. I commute in New Jersey, with probably the highest per-capita rate of incompetent asshole drivers, in a car that probably wouldn't break 10 seconds 0-60 even if the clutch weren't half shot, and I rarely have any problems that better acceleration would fix.

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[Z00L00K]

Then you should start to do science about virus strains like Ebola and the flu. A cross-strain between the flu and Ebola may be the way to go! ;-]

Just make sure that you inoculate yourself first, but on the other hand - then we don't have to compete with you.

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[cayenne8]

I'm a little different...I'm more into performance cars. I dislike SUV's (although it is a free country, get one if you can afford it). But, seriously...the only car I've ever owned in my life with more than 2 seats, was my (11 Turbo.....I lost that to Katrina.

Fun little car, but, was $$ to keep up, and only got about 10 mpg. When the turbo kicked in on that thing...you could almost see the gas gauge physically move.

:-)

But, I like speed and handling in a car. I think of a car as something fun, not just transportation from point A to B.

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[Z00L00K]

I commute in New Jersey, with probably the highest per-capita rate of incompetent asshole drivers. A friend of mine was in Tanzania a couple of years ago, and the top causes for mortality then were:

1. Malaria
2. Traffic
3. AIDS

So maybe you are complaining too much? ;-)

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[HopeOS]

Your entire argument hinges on this being a zero-sum game. It's not. If you want to hand-wave away that the system is closed, then the only system you should be considering is the complete output of the sun plus the potential nuclear energy of this planet. Everything else is a product of one of these two and I don't see either running out in millions of years.

Only 8 nuclear reactors can be opened a year? Please. Come up with a thermodynamic constraint to back that up and we'll talk.

-Hope

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[The One and Only]

Doesn't the Tesla run on something like 100 laptop batteries. That means that for each one, 100 fewer laptops can be produced.

It's impossible to manufacture more batteries?

One factory produces seemless containment units for nuclear reactors. They produce 8 a year. That means that only 8 reactors based on that technology can be opened each year.

Yes but if we also build two seamless containment unit factories per year, we can build 24 reactors the next year, 40 reactors the year after that, and 56 reactors the year after that. Sorry, this is one game of Starcraft that you're gonna lose playing that way.

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[Don853]

Oh, I'd have a sports car in a minute if I still lived somewhere with some nicely banked, curving two-lane blacktops... but on four lane highways between red lights and strip malls, the car becomes just a tool, and one that gets to 60 in 10 or 12 seconds is sufficient.

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[Gordonjcp]

Indeed. I'm planning on entering with a 1993 Citroen AX diesel, or the Peugeot 106 equivalent. Fit alloy wheels, take the carpets out, run it on biodiesel and you've got a 100mph, 100mpg four-seater. Admittedly, you wouldn't want to put four large adults in, but it's possible. It's possible, and it's possible with 15-year-old technology.

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[Russ Nelson]

Wow. You know absolutely NOTHING about economics, do you? In centrally-controlled societies like the socialists used to ask for (until they found out they don't work) the planners would simply ask for more seamless containment units to be built. In free market societies, factories which produce seamless containment units which are suddenly in much greater demand get to charge a much higher price. This is acceptable because the people who built such factories as exist planned well, and deserve their profits. Yet if they did not build enough factories, they won't make as much money. They will make more money if they build new factories, and that is exactly what will happen.

Same thing for laptop batteries. The price system communicates in real time, and flood-fills the marketplace with information about what should, and what should not be built.

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[Dantu]

It will be about creating the most mass producible solution.
True

The best solution will be the one that relies on the most abundant resources.

This is true, but not relevant to your point; manufacturing facilities are only limited resource in the short-term. In the medium to long term more factories can always be built to meet demand (assuming demand is at least slightly predictable).

The more Prius vehicles produced means the fewer HEVs that can be produced by other manufacturers. ...... One factory produces seemless containment units for nuclear reactors. They produce 8 a year. That means that only 8 reactors based on that technology can be opened each year.

Both of those statements are true only in the short-term. Perhaps only 8 reactors based on that technology could be build next year and perhaps it isn't economical to build 10 of them per year, but if demand reached 16 per year (or you got enough of a backlog) you could simply build a new factory. Similarly, the HEV parts that are limited are limited because there has been a recent spike in demand and the manufacturing facilities haven't had a chance to catch up.

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[agent_no.82]

The Tesla Roadster uses about 7,100 laptop batteries, IIRC. Maybe it was 4,000? Either way, it was an order of magnitude more than 100.
Your argument about limiting other uses of resources only applies in two situations:
1. Short term, before markets can adjust for increasing demand.
2. Resources mined out of the ground or otherwise limited by physical nature. There's only so much gold, land, etc.
It does not apply in this case.

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[Rei]

"Under certain circumstances". I.e., don't count on it. The A2 ratings equate to 65mpg city, 87mpg highway. Still not bad at all, mind you.

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[Rei]

Electric cars are a big deal because power plants are more efficient than even diesel engines, the US only loses about 7.2% power in transmission, AC/DC conversion is 90-95% efficient, li-ion batteries are over 99% efficient, and electric motors are 85-90% efficient in a general driving cycle (as much as 95%). Also, power plants have centralized scrubbers and can ultimately be replaced with renewables.

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[jawtheshark]

Did it 'die' because of the 0-60mph in 12 seconds thing (as mentioned in the article)?

No, it did mainly die because the expense of aluminium. Similar cars (in performance) were less expensive (due to using steel). Bodywork repairs require special skills and special tools, which makes that more expensive too. The only other Audi made of aluminium is the A8, but that's a whole other kind of car.

Anyway, my dad happens to have an Audi A2 and I have driven it on occasion. It's a fun little car to drive and while it could use a tad bit more pep (he has the 1.4 petrol engine) I could imagine it as a daily workhorse without any problems.

So, the A2 didn't die due to performance issues. It died because it was too expensive for the perceived value. (Completely ignoring that your car will never, ever rust.... which is quite an advantage) I read your other comments, and saw you like sports cars, but most people (at least at my side of the pond) are quite content with cars performing in that range. How often do you need to madly accelerate anyway? To get on a highway, that's about it and I assure you: getting on the highway between 8h00 and 9h30 in the morning, needs you to accelerate to 20kmh.... *sigh* I should go and be one of the lemmings now.... *deeper sigh*

Re:More practical than other X prizes

[DrWhizBang]

It's kind of hard to provide the required climate control with no doors, isn't it?

Already there, if you drive it right

[Thoguth]

This guy got 180 mpg out of a Honda Insight on a 20-mile urban course in the rain, using energy-conserving driving techniques.

Re:Already there, if you drive it right

[jandrese]

He also has to drive like a total asshole to do it. I appreciate his dedication to gaming the MPG counter on his car, but he's going to kill someone eventually, and if I was in his neighborhood I'm sure he'd drive me crazy when I end up behind him while he's creeping home at 15mph.

Re:Already there, if you drive it right

[Anonymous Coward]

While his concept is 'interesting' there are tons of flaws with that thinking.
1. It is unsafe: 50mph in a 25mph corner? I've done those in my WRX without worry, but my tires don't squeal, the body doesn't roll and pitch like most sedans, and trying it with anything on the road (water, oil, leaves) will probably cause you to understear and crash.

2. Turning off the engine is just plain dumb. At this point you lose power steering (harder to steer), the brake vacuum booster (much slower braking and ABS gone), all electronics, no ability to get power when needed (you have to turn the key), the engine may not refire or take longer to crank, and (I don't intend on testing this) the airbags may not deploy in a crash with the car off.

3. Studies have shown someone going 5mph below the speed limit can cause mile long backups within minutes. Try going 20mph below everyone else. You may get better gas mileage, but tens or hundreds of other cars just got worse so the world is using more oil because of you.

4. A lot of his driving is ILLEGAL. If nothing more, there are laws that prevent this. Safe following distances, though rarely enforced, is wreckless driving. Turning off the engine is. Jumping out of the car while runing and moving is.

Also, try getting everyone to play by those rules and have enough common sense to know how to not crash and what to do in extreme situations.

Re:Already there, if you drive it right

[zermous]

I want this man piloting my interstellar spaceship. Thats one trip I dont want to run out of fuel on.

Re:Already there, if you drive it right

[Anonymous Coward]

"wreckless driving"? Isn't that what we all want?

Re:Already there, if you drive it right

[AshtangiMan]

I'm an insurance salesman you insensitive clod!

Re:Already there, if you drive it right

[ChrisMaple]

Small cars need neither power steering nor power brakes. I drove a 1966 Corvette with neither, and it weighed over 3000 pounds. Modern 4 passenger cars can weigh 2000 pounds; all it takes is good design to reduce effort to reasonable levels.

Some production cars have been produced which turn off the engine at stops automatically. Hybrids are designed to turn off their ICEs and run off batteries as appropriate.

Mostly, turning off the ignition while driving is a skill that can be used by an attentive driver under good conditions. He qualifies, but it's pretty obvious that he's overdoing it. People's time has an economic value that can be counted against slow driving.

That something is illegal doesn't make it wrong.

Re:Already there, if you drive it right

[NoisySplatter]

If you're an insurance salesman you'd want it too. If fewer people get in wrecks your insurance has to pay out less often. Since people are required by law to have insurance they'd just be funneling money into your company for nothing in return.
I hate the concept of insurance, but unfortunately society has feared me into such a pussy that i have to have it.

Re:Already there, if you drive it right

[Intron]

Some states allow you to post a bond instead of buying insurance. A few million $$ and you're all set.

Re:Already there, if you drive it right

[ancientt]

Is it illegal where he is driving? I know that turning off the engine of a vehicle while driving (I'd assume excluding those that do it automatically by design) is illegal in some places, but have yet to see anybody cite an applicable law.

environmentally friendly?

[Eric Pierce]

"The environmentally friendly technologies created as a result of this competition will affect everyone who drives in ways we can't even imagine today," X Prize Chairman and Chief Executive Dr. Peter Diamandis said in a statement.

There's nothing environmentally friendly about the production and use of ANY vehicle. I think "environmentally less-destructive" may be more appropriate way to phrase this.

EP

Re:environmentally friendly?

[shlepp]

we can always make the cars out of used Popsicle sticks and chewing gum, and save some garbage in the process.

Re:environmentally friendly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Go eat some tofu and granola and go back to ignoring the real world, without drastic change to the lifestyles of everyone (totalitarianism anyone) a vehicle for transportation of people and cargo will remain necessary long into the future.

Re:environmentally friendly?

[garett_spencley]

But the truth never sells! (unless it's REALLY bad and about someone we like to make fun of like George W. or CmdrTaco).

Re:environmentally friendly?

[Belial6]

Sure you could make an environmentally friendly car. It could just have a slow release poison, so that after about a year of driving, the owner will die of a "mysterious" illness. This would make it so that most drivers environmental footprint would be less than if he never bought the car in the first place. What isn't environmentally friendly about that? After all, the only way to make it so that humans don't have an impact on the environment is to not have humans.

Re:environmentally friendly?

[gnick]

There's nothing environmentally friendly about the production and use of ANY vehicle. I drive my hybrid Vespa 30 miles a day on 1/4 gallon of biofuel that I generate myself from food leavings that I collect from the local landfill. When I get to my destination, I work 14-hour shifts rescuing endangered squirrels, planting trees, sucking huge amounts of ozone into my mighty lungs so that I can re-process it into pine-scented 02, and encouraging others to become more environmentally aware. If I couldn't drive, I be stuck within walking distance of my apartment all day just picking up litter =( .

I defy you to explain why my vehicle is doing net harm to the environment.

Re:environmentally friendly?

[leoxx]

Gee, exaggerate much?

Re:environmentally friendly?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't tell from TFA - does the contest allow for solar technologies?

Re:environmentally friendly?

[ChrisMaple]

"Environmentally friendly" can mean whatever any storyteller wants it to mean. For example, the environment is what exists now, so any change, for better or worse, is environmentally unfriendly. For another, I prefer the environment inside a warm house to the center of a big forest in an ice storm; I regard the house as the more environmentally friendly option.

If you had to say what you actually mean (which seems to be "I prefer squirrels to healthy, happy humans.") your arguments wouldn't appeal to many people.

Re:environmentally friendly?

[nehumanuscrede]

While I may be incorrect, I've always held to the thinking that ultra-efficient gasoline
vehicles would actually increase the price of gas.

Companies typically like to see their profit margin stay level ( worst case ) or increase.

If we started using 50% less gasoline tomorrow for whatever reason, in order for Big Oil
to maintain their current profits ( not increase them, just maintain them ) they would have
to raise the price of Gas by 50% to compensate for less consumption.

So while we would be technically using far less Gasoline, the price would increase enough
to offset any savings we would see from using less gas to begin with.

My understanding is a similar issue has shown up with Water in the drought stricken states
here. Due to the drought, they are under strict water use guidelines so the consumption
has dropped off dramatically. However, in order to maintain profits the water companies
have spiked their prices accordingly. Same formula.

Less consumption = less water company profit unless the price is increased to compensate.

The only way to see lower gas prices ( as much as I hate to say it ) is to regulate how
much profit Big Oil can make off of everyone else who is paying for Gas it provides.

Thoughts ?

Re:environmentally friendly?

[Belial6]

Either I'm not getting what you think is exaggerated, or you don't know what the word exaggerated means. What in my post was exaggerated?

Re:environmentally friendly?

[Aradorn]

How many trees have you planted? At last count my family has planted almost half a billion....

Re:environmentally friendly?

[amliebsch]

If we started using 50% less gasoline tomorrow for whatever reason, in order for Big Oil to maintain their current profits ( not increase them, just maintain them ) they would have to raise the price of Gas by 50% to compensate for less consumption.

This would only be true if all the oil companies were forced to collude, because it is in each individual oil company's best interest to grab as much market share as it can so long as the price is above the cost of production. The easiest way to do this is to lower your price below your competitors' prices.

My understanding is a similar issue has shown up with Water in the drought stricken states here. Due to the drought, they are under strict water use guidelines so the consumption has dropped off dramatically. However, in order to maintain profits the water companies have spiked their prices accordingly. Same formula.

No, no, this is totally different. In this case, the reason the price rises is because the supply is lower - even if the demand is also lowered through use restrictions, it's not enough to compensate for the drop in supply. In the oil scenario, we'd expect that (at least in the near future) the available supply will not drop that severely, so there would be no such mechanism forcing the price higher.

The only way to see lower gas prices ( as much as I hate to say it ) is to regulate how much profit Big Oil can make off of everyone else who is paying for Gas it provides

Really, the only thing that would be necessary would be to ensure that the oil companies were not colluding to fix prices, and allow the greed of the individual companies to try push prices lower than their competitors.

Re:environmentally friendly?

[mknewman]

Any internal combustion engine burns O2 with some fuel, be it gasoline, diesel, biodiesel, methane, or whatever. O2 levels world wide are way down from earlier centuries, and it's not getting better. We need to start using fuels that don't use up our oxygen (Nuclear, wind, tidal, geothemal) and get away from carbon all together (CO2 byproduct), and start replanting forests world wide to replensih our O2.

Re:environmentally friendly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple. Where did all the energy come from to MAKE your car? How many resources were consumed? How much waste was made?

Your polluting was done the second you bought it.

100 MPH?

[supabeast!]

What is the point of an efficient car having a top speed of 100 MPH? How many places in the world is it even legal to drive that fast--much less safe? Does anyone else find that requirement a bit silly?

Re:100 MPH?

[c_forq]

If you've ever driven a car at its top speed you would know. You don't want to make the top speed the highest speed you expect people to travel. In this case they probably want to allow the driver to go 70 mph up a hill.

Re:100 MPH?

[truthsearch]

Ever drive a car near its top speed? For long drives you don't want to run the car near its extremes. You'll wear out the car very quickly and you probably won't enjoy the ride.

Re:100 MPH?

[AGMW]

How many places in the world is it even legal to drive that fast--much less safe?

Well, Germany springs to mind, Ohio during the day (was it Ohio that has unrestricted speed limits during the day - or have they revoked that rule already!).

Is it safe? The Government, well ours in the UK anyway, have been doing a great job trying to make people think that speed is somehow inherently dangerous. Heads up folks ... it isn't!
On a (reasonably) clear motorway in good weather in a well maintained car and 100MPH is actually fine. On the other side of the coin, 20MPH outside a junior school at chucking out time may well be the posted speed limit but could be way to fast! This is the basic reason why most people have no respect for the law when it comes to speed limits - 99.9% of the time the posted limit isn't appropriate, and yet they try and enforce the limits 100% of the time - exactly who are you protecting by giving a ticket to someone passing a school (often now a 20 limit in the UK) at 25 or 30 MPH at midnight? It's farcical!

We've had variable speed limits on the M25 for years now ... why not have a 15MPH limit by schools when it's the times that the kids arrive and leave school (in mummy's humvee usually!), 20MPH for the rest of a normal school day, + 1hr either side of school time, and 30MPH (or whatever is the prevailing limit in the area) the rest of the time?

Re:100 MPH?

[TnkMkr]

The 100mph on a flat surface is metric for driving the available power to the wheels of the vehicle. Power required at the wheels is driven by many factors including, vehicle weight, aero drag, road incline, current vehicle acceleration demand, and rolling resistance.

The power required to maintain 100mph does not take into account power draws for road incline or vehicle acceleration. So the idea is to drive the designed power output of the drivetrain, such that reserves exist to allow for desired levels of acceleration and speed on inclines when operating the vehicle at speeds of 25-65mph (typical operation).

Now they could have defined the requirments as 45mph on a 3% grade, 55mph on a 2% grade, minimum acceleration time between 0-60mph, 0-30 mph, and 30-60mph, but I believe they just simplified it down to having a maximum speed of 100 mph.

A top speed requirment will also, possibly, drive aerodynamic improvements on the car.

Re:100 MPH?

[EvanED]

...Ohio during the day (was it Ohio that has unrestricted speed limits during the day - or have they revoked that rule already!).

As someone who has driven across Ohio on I-80 on a couple of occasions, it at least isn't the case on that road, much to my chagrin. (It's something like 4 hours across it at 65 mph, which is over a third of the time from my current home to my parents'.

Re:100 MPH?

[FatAlb3rt]

That was Montana from 1995-1999.

Re:100 MPH?

[Thelasko]

Ohio during the day (was it Ohio that has unrestricted speed limits during the day - or have they revoked that rule already!).

I think you are confusing Ohio with Montana. Ohio actually has the most speed traps in the US, and Montana got rid of that law. Germans actually used to travel to Montana because it was actually easier to drive fast in Montana than Germany due to all of the congestion on the Autobahn.

Re:100 MPH?

[MobyDisk]

The Government, well ours in the UK anyway, have been doing a great job trying to make people think that speed is somehow inherently dangerous. Heads up folks ... it isn't! I'm glad that is your opinion, but the statistics seem to disagree with that statement and show that severity and likelihood of accidents is directly proportional to speed.

Re:100 MPH?

[steevc]

On a (reasonably) clear motorway in good weather in a well maintained car and 100MPH is actually fine

The problem is that people try to go that fast even when none of those conditions is satisfied. In fog, snow and heavy traffic I see people who think they are great drivers trying to go faster than is safe. People may overestimate how safe they are in their nice quiet car with its ABS and airbags. I don't deny that you are probably much less likely to die than in a 1960s Jaguar E-Type or similar from when the first motorways opened in the UK.

I would be interested to see:
a. Details of fuel consumption for a given car at 70, 80, 90 and 100mph. I expect to see a substantial difference
b. How survivable a crash into, for example, a bridge pillar is at each of those speeds

Re:100 MPH?

[Burning1]

Speaking as someone who races motorcycles, in the USA it's safe far more often than it's legal.

With well maintained roads, it's would not be particularly dangerous to hit those speeds within the flow of traffic, on in the absence of traffic. Frankly, I would feel safer at 100MPH around focused drivers than I do around our current breed of latte drinking, cell phone talking, SUV driving, no-dozeing, 65MPH traffic.

As other people have pointed out, cruising speed is always somewhat below maximum speed. Generally a vehicle with a maximum speed of 100MPH can comfortably drive somewhere between 60 and 80 MPH. Reaching maximum speed usually requires flooring it far longer than most people feel comfortable. It also encourages drivers to maintain momentum in situations where it's really best to slow down.

Re:100 MPH?

[Revenger75]

The Government, well ours in the UK anyway, have been doing a great job trying to make people think that speed is somehow inherently dangerous. Heads up folks ... it isn't!

So speed is like a falling? It's not the fall that kills you, its the impact. I'm not worried about driving around going 100 if I was the only one driving. I'm worried about all the other maniacs on the roads along with the road conditions. Normally, its two or more vehicles that are involved in a collision. And I don't want to be involved in a 100 mph head-on or T-bone accident. How about you?

Re:100 MPH?

[gnasher719]

I'm glad that is your opinion, but the statistics [tfhrc.gov] seem to disagree [fairtrafficlaws.com] with that statement [nap.edu] and show that severity and likelihood of accidents is directly proportional to speed [sciencedirect.com]. Speed may not be inherently dangerous, but speed differences are, and not meeting the expectations of others will be dangerous as well. Going 100 mph on a German motorway without speed limitation is not too dangerous, because people expect you to do it. The same speed in the UK could get you killed much easier because people don't expect it. And drivers are not used to it. And the people going 100mph in the UK are usually morons who only think they can drive.

Re:100 MPH?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those seem to show that closing speed is more important than actual speed - that if the average driver on the road is going 75, you'll be safer at 75 or even 85 than at 55. That first link also uses a hell of a lot of cherry-picked statistics (notably for the USA, I know nothing about fatality rates in other countries).

Re:100 MPH?

[Chode2235]

Wouldn't it be easier to use a better metric like torque pounds, or something that measures power, not speed, when we want to be sure the power of the vehicle is appropriate?

Re:100 MPH?

[b00tang]

Ok fine, I decided to take your bait and click on the links (and get offtopic in the process). The only conclusions that those papers brought me to is that deviating from the average speed increases your risk of a crash and that you are more likely to die the larger your change in speed is at the moment of the crash. So that seems to suggest: drive the speed limit and avoid hitting trees. It doesn't say that the speed limit should be lowered.

I believe the parent was talking about this growing trend were politicians suggest that decreasing the speed limit will make roads safer. The last paper you cited even mentions findings from Garber and Gadiraju (1989) that suggest that the crash rate is lowest when the speed limit is 5-10mph less than the design speed for the road. So if the speed limits on our roads were initial set to 5-10 mph less than the design speed then lowering the speed limit increases the crash rate.

I can't say for certain that the speed limits were actually set to 5-10mph below design speed when the roads were built, but it certainly seems like the way I would set the speed limit.

Finally if people already drive 10-15 mph above the speed limit (ever driven on 94 near Chicago, it is the main road I am familiar with and that is certainly the norm) then these results may suggest that it would be safer to just raise the speed limit. But really I know nothing of this subject so feel from to correct me as you see fit.

Re:100 MPH?

[MrLogic17]

(was it Ohio that has unrestricted speed limits during the day - or have they revoked that rule already!)

Montana had the "reasonable speed" limit. It's back to posted limit of 70, IIRC. Ohio is a 65 MPH state, with Columbus noted for being a high enforcement area. Kind of an anti-Montana.

Re:100 MPH?

[Whiteox]

Ever drive a car near its top speed? Yes. In safe circumstances as well, but only a few kilometres at a time.
Datsun SSS 1.8 litre approx 190km/hr
Mazda RX2 (1200 cc) approx 200 km/hr (blows flames out of the exhaust at this speed).
Renault 17 Gordini 1.6 litre approx 220km/hr
Best car was the Gordini @ 130 BHP. Light, excellent handling/braking.

Re:100 MPH?

[AGMW]

Hmmm. The severity of damage sustained in a crash will indeed be related to the relative speeds of this involved, but the amount of damage sustained has no bearing on how likely the accident is to start with.

Statistics eh! If the likelhood of accidents was directly proportional to speed you would expect motorways to have more accidents than the slower "A" and "B" roads, but this isn't the case, indeed motorways are the safest roads to drive on.

Also, there are fewer accidents on the German autobahns (unrestricted) than on the Portugese motorways (lowest speed limit in Europe) which seems to contradict the results of the survey!

The Survey (severity and likelyhood):
"Both types of studies found evidence that crash rate increases faster with an increase in speed on minor roads than on major roads."
Of course speed will be a factor - if you are stationary you are less likely to be in an accident (but it still may, and does, happen) - but the abstract might suggest (actually, it says it!) that speed is less of a factor in accidents on major roads? Oh ... hang on ... isn't that what I said? Facts Schmacts eh!

"vehicle that moved (much) faster than other traffic around it, had a higher crash rate"
Wait a minute ... that's speed differential, not speed per se. That's one of the reasons why motorways are safer at speed than minor roads, everyone is going in the same direction at roughly the same speed.

Re:100 MPH?

[AGMW]

Oh come on - didn't I say something like ...

"On a (reasonably) clear motorway ..."

No, actually, I said exactly that! Of course it would be stupid to drive faster than the conditions warrant - conditions being everything from (but not limited too - for the pedants!) traffic, weather, light, vehicle, driver, star sign, wind direction, latest lunar eclipse!.

If you agree that 100MPH on an empty motorway ... yada yada yada ... isn't inherently unsafe, indeed could be deemed safer than 40MPH outside an infants school at kicking out time, then you have agreed that speed isn't inherently dangerous.

Re:100 MPH?

[AGMW]

I'm not worried about driving around going 100 if I was the only one driving.

Which is pretty much what I was suggesting (reasonably clear motorway) isn't it? So, if 100MPH is OK if you are the only one driving doesn't that suggest that speed isn't inherently dangerous? Or is that just me?

How about you?

As it 'appens, I have an allergy to accidents of all kinds, and tend to come out in a nasty (road) rash and broken bones, etc, but when there are other muppets on the road I tend to drive a lot slower, and far more defensively. I pretty much assume that all the other road users are suicidal and hell bent on crashing into, or jumping out in front of, me and give them a wide berth accordingly, but when I've got the road to myself I will indeed make like a towel, and press on!

I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[erroneus]

Recently, I have examined an implementation of something that seems very simple and very effective. It reads to me as "too good to be true" and yet I can't presently see what's wrong with it.

The technology is essentially "use electrolysis to split hydrogen and oxygen from water and feed that into your fuel system as a supplement." The vehicle I saw this on had been running it for about 6 to 8 weeks. It consisted of a couple of mason jars, some simple hardware and hoses tapping into the existing fuel system of the vehicle. (If it helps to know, it was a 6 cylinder minivan with a fairly heavy load of tools inside at all times.) This vehicle is now getting approximately 46 miles per gallon of gasoline.

As to emissions, I could smell none. There was exhaust, but I couldn't smell anything at all... just warmed, slightly damp, air. It has been said that the hydrogen combustion does things to the gasoline combustion that helps create a more complete burn or something to that end reducing carbon build-up. (In my mind, the laws of conservation of matter register telling me carbon is still there, but I am uncertain what form it may be taking... carbon-dioxide? carbon-monoxide?)

I don't claim to know and understand all of what's going on and my "snake oil" warning lights are flashing. So I pose this somewhat relevant question to the really smart people here on Slashdot:

Why is this a bad idea?

Re:I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[ryanguill]

where is the energy coming from to perform the electrolysis? Is it coming from the alternator that is running off of the gasoline? If not you need to factor that into the energy usage as well, MPG isn't the only measurement you have to look at.

Re:I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[erroneus]

It's coming from the battery through the fuse box.

Re:I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about this particular system, whether it is bullshit or not. Truckers have been using a system where alternator power is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, and both are then pumped into the engine. It not only makes it burn cleaner, but increases MPG as well. Look up the real system online.

Re:I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[MoonBuggy]

The energy gained from the hydrogen combustion will be less than the energy expended in the electrolysis. It's as simple as that. No system is 100% efficient, so you must lose some energy in the process of extracting the hydrogen from the water. If the hydrogen generator were plugged into the wall you could argue that the gains coming from the electricity used were greater than spending the equivalent money on petrol rather than electricity, even factoring in the inherent losses from the process, but inside the car's system all the energy ultimately comes from the petrol anyway.

I no very little about the chemistry involved in adding hydrogen to the combustion of petrol, so I can't say what (if any) impact it could have on emissions, but the physics of the situation mean that you must be expending more fuel overall than you would without the system.

Re:I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[Locklin]

In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!

Re:I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[bcattwoo]

I think some people are too quick to dismiss this based on the argument that the laws of thermodynamics say that it can't work. But they don't take into account that ICEs are only like 25% efficient, so it would seem that it is at least feasible that there could be some synergistic (sorry for the buzzword) effect that could increase the overall combustion efficiency even if the hydrogen itself was a net loss.

I am not saying that I am convinced that it does work, but just that it cannot be dismissed out of hand using only conservation of energy arguments.

Re:I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[Belial6]

Your response makes no sense. The guy said the car was getting 46 mpg on gas. If that isn't adding energy, then every car on the road is a perpetual motion machine. If you know of some other reason that this wouldn't work, speak up, but you explanation that boils down to "law of thermodynamics" sounds like someone who doesn't really understand what it means.

Re:I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. The idea behind this is that the presence of the hydrogen increases the efficiency of the gasolines combustion. The extra energy doesn't come from the H2, but rather from the petrol, because the H2+O2 reaction speeds up the burn. That said efficiency gains should not be as large as he is claiming, and while faster burn should lower the CO coming out the pipe (a good thing), it does so by increasing CO2 (Since both gases are odorless anyway, smelling the emissions won't really tell you much). The advantages of such a system in a consumer vehicle may be outweighed by the added load on the motor, weight from the water/tank/piping, and complexity; however it may be useful for larger motors, such as trucks, or ships.

Re:I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[Belial6]

Cool, but in my house we know what the "laws of thermodynamics" means!

Re:I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[ti1ion]

It isn't a bad idea. Slashdot covered this idea in 2005. In the article there is a link to a Wired story about the process. It provides gains in power, efficiency and pollution control.

I have been thinking about this process ever since I saw the story. I have been trying to convert my company's fleet supervisor to the idea, but have had no luck.

Re:I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[Locklin]

GP was basically referring to a slightly more complicated version of the basic "dude.. my car runs on water" nutjob trying to convince people that by splitting water, and burning the hydrogen, they can actually get somewhere. Now, I suppose hydrogen may work as a catalyst to improve the combustion efficiency somewhat, so I guess it's not purely a "free energy" claim, but it's still pretty suspicious.

Re:I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[Ironsides]

I remember hearing about this before. It's not energy from nothing, it's an increase in engine efficiency. This is being used in Diesel engines to increase the efficiency of the engine. The power required to perform the electrolysis is less than the increase in fuel efficiency the engine receives by putting a little bit of hydrogen into the engine.

Re:I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[wolfemi1]

I believe in this case that the extra energy gained from adding hydrogen and oxygen is actually because of combusting the fuel more completely. This also has the effect of reducing emissions. I remember reading an article about this a while ago.... aha, here we go: http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Fuel_Efficiency_Hydrogen_Injection

Basically, the downside is increased complexity and cost, increased weight, and having to occasionally refill the water tank with highly pure water. There are real energy and emissions benefits to this, and it is being commercialized right now.

Re:I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[erroneus]

So this technology is far older and more mature than I thought. It doesn't seem like it has been "suppressed" technology in any way. But given that it seems rather proven, for quite some time, I have to wonder why it hasn't been picked up on a wider, more consumer-level, scale? I'm trying to stay clear of 'conspiracy theory' or anything along those lines. I just have to wonder why this simple and apparently effective cleaner technology isn't in wider use.

So from this discussion so far, I have learned that the reason there is a reduction in emissions is because the gasoline is simply having hydrogen (in the form of Brown's gas?) introduced as an additive resulting in a more clean and efficient burn. It's not getting a boost directly from the combustion of the hydrogen itself since there's probably not enough there to make a cylinder cycle. (At least that's what I think I'm understanding here.) I didn't know that it was already in wide use in larger trucks and that the technology is called "HFI."

According to the article from 2005, this was a "new idea" back in 1975. The article also mentions rather modestly that the improvement is only about 10% and that the system costs anywhere from $4,000 to $14,000 and that car makers aren't likely to be interested in the technology. As near as I can tell, the $4,000 to $14,000 estimation is way out of line... extremely out of line... and the improvement would seem greater than 10% but then I have to wonder what 'metric' is being cited? It says 'fuel consumption' but what aspect of fuel consumption are we talking about? According to the one example I have witnessed, I'm told it was an approximate doubling in gas mileage. (What should a 6 cylinder minivan made back in the mid to late 1990's get in terms of mileage? If he's getting around 46mpg and it's doubling, then is 23mpg about normal for that type of vehicle?)

I want to try this for myself and I'm still seeking reasons why I shouldn't... it's easier to do nothing, you know... but I'm so intrigued!

Re:I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[Belial6]

While it may be suspicious, the GP was absolutely claiming the hydrogen was a catalyst, and was not in the slightest bit even implying that this vehicle was running off of hydrogen split from water with power generated by the recombining the hydrogen with oxygen. While I encourage people to be skeptical, shouting "Thermodynamics!" every time someone presents and idea is neither factually correct, nor helpful. It basically makes you a faux-intellectual. You use the words, but don't understand them.

Re:I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[Thelasko]

From a quick look at what you are talking about it seems this "Water4Gas" simply increases the ratio of hydrogen to carbon in your fuel source. Methane and Propane have a pretty high hydrogen to carbon ratio and the technology already exists to do so. Splitting water by electrolysis is not very efficient and would be a waste of energy. A better solution would be to break down plant material into methane and burn that in an engine.

Re:I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[Thelasko]

OOPS!
Methane and Propane have a pretty high hydrogen to carbon ratio and the technology already exists to use them automobiles.

There, fixed it.

Re:I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[Locklin]

Obviously from my clarification, I do understand "them." If anything, I didn't spend much time evaluating the gp because it just reaks of a very common "snake oil" pitch (just with gasoline added to the mixture) - and didn't critically think of a catalyst effect.

Re:I'm looking for reasons against "Water4Gas"

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.qsinano.com/

By coating the electrodes with nano-particles, they've made electrolysis around 85% efficient. They believe they can achieve 96% efficiency in around 5 years.

No Batteries Allowed

[Colonel Korn]

I had the same reaction when I read the summary, but on reading the article it sounds like the car is required to use gasoline. If not, how would they convert their 100 mpg requirement into electric-car terms? I can imagine several possibilities, but none seem really neutral.

It's not really fair (or in the spirit of the competition) to disallow electric cars, but it's not fair to say they get infinite mpg, either. Do we measure their cost in electricity, or in fossil fuel burning to generate that power? That would be difficult, since it varies from market to market. Instead, it sounds like the X people are just banning them.

Note: I only read the CNN article. If someone finds more specific information on electrics, let me know.

Re:No Batteries Allowed

[MyNymWasTaken]

http://www.progressiveautoxprize.org/auto/prize-details/draft-guidelines

Fuel economy (energy efficiency): at least 100 Miles per gallon of gasoline energy equivalent (Mpge)

Vehicles must use AXP-supplied fuel during performance tests and races. A limited number of representative fuels will be provided. This will neutralize fuel gaming, and allow us to focus on viable fuels that are available in the marketplace to a level of our satisfaction. At this point, we expect to provide gasoline, diesel, electricity, natural gas, bio-diesel, and E85

Re:No Batteries Allowed

[Colonel Korn]

Awesome. I'd mod you up if I could, because that's important information.

Re:No Batteries Allowed

[nschubach]

Damn, I was hoping for Mr. Fusion.

Why not water, sand, dirt, wind, or the sun?

Re:No Batteries Allowed

[Anonymous Coward]

How far can one go on a gallon of electricity?

Three Wheels?

[lancelotlink]

I don't know if a 3 wheeled vehicle would be a non efficient platform or couldn't cope with all the other requirements, but if they're looking for something extraordinary, why limit themselves with something like "Must have 4 or more wheels"?

Re:Three Wheels?

[truthsearch]

My guess is they want something consumers will easily accept. The closer to today's common vehicle, the more likely people will buy it.

Re:Three Wheels?

[chrismcdirty]

I'm no expert, but it would seem to me that three-wheeled vehicles would be more prone to flipping in an accident or tight turn.

Re:Three Wheels?

[badboy_tw2002]

Bad summary. RTFA, they have two categories - one for normal cars, one for alternative models.

Re:Three Wheels?

[Ngarrang]

I don't know if a 3 wheeled vehicle would be a non efficient platform or couldn't cope with all the other requirements, but if they're looking for something extraordinary, why limit themselves with something like "Must have 4 or more wheels"? I question this limitation, as well. Three wheels means less resistance on the road than four tires. Also, 3-wheeled vehicles in many states count as "motorcycles" and are way cheaper to insure as a result. The Aptera (http://www.aptera.com/) is an example of this.

Re:Three Wheels?

[Rampantbaboon]

Dude, nobody wants a Robin.

EVER.

Re:Three Wheels?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know a few people that have driven the Can-Am Spyder, and they all say it is incredibly stable. Three wheels. Go figure.
I think it is merely an engineering problem. Sort of like the new generation of fighter aircraft. Build something inherently 'twitchy' and then add control systems.

http://spyder.brp.com/

Re:Three Wheels?

[Ironsides]

Three wheels means less resistance on the road than four tires.

Less resistance on the road is a bad thing. It decreases top braking and acceleration power as otherwise the wheels would slip.

Also, 3-wheeled vehicles in many states count as "motorcycles" and are way cheaper to insure as a result

Legally, most people can not drive a motorcycle (which, as you say, 3 wheels count as) due to the licenses they have. They only have non-commercial licenses for cars/trucks. My guess is they want one that will people will be able to drive under existing laws as well.

Re:Three Wheels?

[ChrisMaple]

Do training wheels count?

Re:Three Wheels?

[ashitaka]

Only if the single wheel is at the front. The current entries with three wheels (even though not supposedly allowed) have two wheels at the front and can do insane cornering. The one exception to this was a vehicle that tilted when cornering.

Think of how many times Mr. Bean was able to get that Reliant Robin to roll over.

Re:Three Wheels?

[Chode2235]

The prize is sponsored by Progressive Insurance; coincidental to your point.

hit 60 miles per hour in less than 12 seconds?

[dougmc]

hit 60 miles per hour in less than 12 seconds

My 1981 Rabbit Diesel literally took 45 seconds to go 0 to 60, and couldn't go over 75 mph without a hill or tailwind -- so I'm guessing it's not going to win this. On the other hand, it did get 52 mph if you drove it right -- not ultra-efficient, but not bad at all for a real world car, especially considering that it was made 27 years ago.

I hated that car at the time (gas was cheap, and I was a teenager), but I think I'd feel differently about it now if I could have it back :/

Re:hit 60 miles per hour in less than 12 seconds?

[robertjw]

I hated that car at the time (gas was cheap, and I was a teenager), but I think I'd feel differently about it now if I could have it back :/ You can
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1981-VOLKSWAGON-RABBIT-LS-4-dr-DIESEL-MANUAL-RESTORED_W0QQitemZ320228558143QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item320228558143

Re:hit 60 miles per hour in less than 12 seconds?

[Ihlosi]

My 1981 Rabbit Diesel literally took 45 seconds to go 0 to 60, and couldn't go over 75 mph without a hill or tailwind -- so I'm guessing it's not going to win this. On the other hand, it did get 52 mph if you drove it right -- not ultra-efficient, but not bad at all for a real world car, especially considering that it was made 27 years ago.

Oh, come on. My 2004 VW Touran 2.0 TDI goes from 0 to 60 in 10.3 seconds and easily goes 100 mph. And it gets 48 mpg on the highway (@75 mph, loaded with 2 adults, 2 kids and luggage) even when you do wasteful things like letting it idle for 10 minutes during a break on a rest stop. And it has lots of cargo space (or two extra seats and a little bit of cargo space), automatic transmission, AC and whatnot.

On the other hand, to win that prize I'd probably start with some of VWs newest gasoline engines (the 1.4 TSI) and design the car around that (maybe doing a hybrid, but definitely adding stuff like a transmission optimized for fuel economy and other such stuff).

Re:hit 60 miles per hour in less than 12 seconds?

[dougmc]

Oh, come on.

Oh, come on what? The car really did take 45 seconds to get to 60 mph, and it really did peter out at 75 mph. (I once got it to 94 down a long steep hill, however.) These values are not exaggerated.

I think their requirements are a little steep. 0-60 in 30 seconds and top speed of 80 should be plenty for a practical, real world car. 75 mph top speed is a little slow, however -- back in 1981 we had the Nationally mandated 55 mph speed limit, and now we don't (though we might see it again, the way gas prices are going up ...)

Re:hit 60 miles per hour in less than 12 seconds?

[jawtheshark]

Be a bit fair... His Rabbit was from 1981 and your Touran is from 2004. The technology is frigging 23 years apart! Besides, he says "Diesel" and you reply with "Turbo Diesel". That little word "Turbo" means a lot, and I have driven a TDI where the "T" was broken. We rented it on Maillorca and after a few days the performance was in the gutter. Not fun if you know Maillorca is a bit "hilly" (at least in the part were we were) We only later found out the turbo was broken.

So, yes, your Touran does 0 to 60 in a bit over 10 seconds. I can believe that his Rabbit took at least 3 times more to get from 0 to 60.

Re:hit 60 miles per hour in less than 12 seconds?

[Ihlosi]

Oh, come on what? Sorry, that was a bit too ambiguous. I meant "Oh, come on, you don't need to mention a car from 25 years ago. You can easily get 50 mpg and decent acceleration from a modern diesel vehicle, just maybe not one that's sold in the US".

In fact, I think the Audi A2 would pretty much fulfill the criteria of this X-Prize already, or need very little modification to do so (its 80 mpg version didn't have AC, and unfortunately Audi stopped making it since it was simply too expensive (due to all the expensive materials used, e.g. Aluminum) for a "small car". The VW Lupo might fit the bill, too, but it was also discontinued.

realistic specs??

[egburr]

I would love to get 100 MPG, but why do they require acceleration to 60 in 12 seconds? 15-20 seconds would be just fine. And more importantly, why do they require a minimum top speed of 100 MPH? 80 MPH would be more than sufficient for 99.99% of roads worldwide. I'd be happy with 100 MPG even if I could never get it over 75 MPH. Of course I'd be happy if most of the cars on the highway would drive the same speed, instead of having some people driving slow in the fast lanes and other people constantly swerving across lanes to maintain their speed 10-20 MPH over the general traffic flow. I'm not advocating artificially restricting the speed capabilities; I'm just questioning why they make such a high speed (that only police cars and people running from police cars need) a requirement.

Re:realistic specs??

[Zelos]

I was thinking the same thing, I drive a fairly fuel-efficient car (~50mpg US) which does 0-60 in 14s, it's perfectly fine for city and motorway.

How often do drivers actually use the full acceleration of the car, anyway?

Re:realistic specs??

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point is that they are shooting for a car with high economy that __doesn't sacrifice anything__. Anything less, and people won't ditch their SUVs. Otherwise you hear people whining about, "It doesn't have enough power," or "its too cramped" or whatever excuse they use to keep driving their 8mpg gas hog.

Re:realistic specs??

[gknoy]

California, at least, has a law that requires you to merge with freeway traffic at something similar to freeway speeds. In the space of a freeway on-ramp, you should be able to accelerate to ~60 mph. Otherwise, you cause traffic and safety issues for other drivers.

Re:realistic specs??

[Enleth]

Rarely, but when you need it - well, you really NEED it. Sometimes the only way to escape a high-speed collision or a very bad skid is to accelerate, not to brake, and you certainly wouldn't want yor car to be at its maximum power already.

Re:realistic specs??

[fgouget]

And more importantly, why do they require a minimum top speed of 100 MPH? 80 MPH would be more than sufficient for 99.99% of roads worldwide. I'm glad to learn that France and Germany, to cite just those two, represent less than 0.01% of the roads worldwide. Even if that's the case, I don't see why they would be so much less important than the 0.04% represented by the US roads. See in France the highest speed limit is 80.8mph and people routinely drive at that speed, even normal people who are neither thieves running from the police, nor cops running after them. And in Germany large swaths of the motorways have no speed limit at all. So in either case a car that can barely reach 80mph for a few minutes and only in ideal conditions is not going to cut it.

I'd be happy with 100 MPG even if I could never get it over 75 MPH. Right, that would be fine for a city car, great even. But then people would have to have a second car for longer trips and that's no good for the environment (due to waste and energy expanded to build the second car), impractical for anyone living in densely populated areas due to limited parking, too expensive for a good portion of the population, etc. In other words it would be a fine achievement, but one with applicability limited to a small part of the market. It's also a niche that's easier to serve with all-electric vehicles for instance, so it's kind of half-solved already. And it's clearly the target of the 'alternative cars' category anyway.

Re:realistic specs??

[EvanED]

And more importantly, why do they require a minimum top speed of 100 MPH? 80 MPH would be more than sufficient for 99.99% of roads worldwide. I'd be happy with 100 MPG even if I could never get it over 75 MPH.

As others have said, you want to be able to go 70 when going uphill too. One of my friends had an old junker when we were undergrads that could easily maintain highway speeds on flat roads (we were definitely in the 70s at times) but whenever she would come back to school, approaching the town you have to go over a ridge in the Appalachians. She could hit the bottom of the ridge going 70, keep the pedal floored, and be going 45 or 50 at the top. This isn't some back road either; it's the main route into PSU from the south-east, and is a four-lane segment of US-322.

Requiring 100 mph is probably a simple way of trying to prevent something like that from happening.

Re:realistic specs??

[dmatos]

Acceleration like that is required for safe merging onto a highway that's traveling at 60MPH. Assuming linear acceleration from zero to sixty (which is probably an optimistic assumption), say you get on the highway on-ramp at 30, and have to accelerate up to 60 to merge. You'd need 6 seconds to do that. How far would you travel in those 6 seconds?

0.2 miles

And if you used 10 seconds to do that (0-60 in 20 seconds)?

0.5 miles

How long are the on-ramps where you live?

As for the top speed, that's what you'd get to after holding down the accelerator on a flat, straight stretch of the road for 2-3 minutes. Reasonable traveling speed for a vehicle is always some amount below the maximum speed of that vehicle.

Re:realistic specs??

[Christianfreak]

Because a car for the mainstream must be able to use freeways. 15-20 seconds is TOO SLOW and risk accidents as you try to merge. I have no love for idiots who do 30 on the on-ramp when traffic is moving at 70+.

I live in Dallas. The speed-limit of 60 on the freeways is meaningless. Unless there is a traffic jam people are going 70+ in the slow lane. Most large cities are the same way.

Also if your car can't go 100. How's it going to have the power to stay with traffic on a hill.

Speed doesn't hurt you. Its stupid driving that causes accidents and traffic jams: tail-gating, lane swapping, cutting in or out of exit only lanes. However I'd also suggest that all of the bad driving habits can usually be partially attributed to someone else who's not moving the speed of traffic and/or refuses to vacate the left lane, or doesn't accelerate or move fast enough.

SLOW KILLS!

Re:realistic specs??

[Rampantbaboon]

That seems like more of a transmission issue to me. I occasionally drive in the colorado mountains where speeds are ridiculous compared to the dangerous roads. In order to maintain any sort of speed going up a hill, the car MUST be in 4th at the minimum. Granted a lot of the roads up there are so bad that you can't let the clutch out easy enough to start on the up grade when stopped.

Re:realistic specs??

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh, a comment from the Utopian Idealist party.

Why 0-60 in 12 seconds? If you drive in an even remotely urban area you wouldn't even ask that question - there are times when you need that acceleration to match the speed of traffic on a freeway entrance ramp in order to merge safely.

Re:realistic specs??

[Anonymous Coward]

100 MPH isn't unrealistic at all. Sounds like lots of people on here don't understand speed. Thats fine for all you nutcases, but some of us here _do_ appreciate things like cars.
Just think the next time you are are in a 60 MPH zone that there is no point making a car that can go faster.
Forget overtaking and passing - not all roads are dual carriageway (or more).
Also, forget driving in anything other than a light breeze.

I'd rather trust my life to a car thats been overspeced and understressed than to a car that has no safety margins at all.

99.99% of roads worldwide? I guess its been a while since we've left Kansas, hey Aunt Em?

And in the simplest possible terms 'why 100MPH as a requirement' - because fuel efficiency and top speed are at opposite ends of the spectrum. This is a competition. you raise the bar at both ends.

Re:realistic specs??

[Belial6]

No, most of the accidents, and all of the traffic jams are caused by not having enough roads for the number of vehicles on them. I you are an eight lane highway, and there is only one other vehicle on that road, his driving slow will not impact you in any noticeable way. It's when you are on a 2 lane road and you have two cars in front of you that are pacing each other at 30 mph. Or, when you are on that same 8 lane highway, and traffic is so dense that when someone makes a lane change, the car that is now behind them has to slow down to keep a safe distance. When the next 3 cars merge on and cause the same slowing down, you have a traffic jam. It is a standing wave that is caused by adding more vehicles to the road, and there is no amount of "good" driving that will prevent this.

Re:realistic specs??

[Anonymous Coward]

However I'd also suggest that all of the bad driving habits can usually be partially attributed to someone else who's not moving the speed of traffic and/or refuses to vacate the left lane, or doesn't accelerate or move fast enough.

The two worst highway driving habits are tailgating and illegal lane changing. Doing either of those things just because someone is not driving fast enough is NOT the fault of the other person. I know it is politically incorrect to advocate patience, but if you cannot wait a few seconds at a safe distance behind the slowpoke to make a safe lane change, then you are a danger to yourself and to everyone around you.

STUPID KILLS!

Re:realistic specs??

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, it's motor/power. My truck has a weak 350 Chevy TBI engine, it has no problem on its own, but when hauling 5500 lbs of trailer behind it, it struggles to go up steep hills. I'll have the pedal on the floor and struggle to get 55-60 MPH on some steep bridges (think I 10 in west Louisiana). Truck has a perfectly functional 4L80E transmission (4-speed automatic reasonably heavy duty), so it's definitely not the trans.

I've experienced similar with old UHaul vans. I had one of the large ones (with a manual transmission) that was downright scary on the interstate. I'd have it floored going down hill just to be able to crest the next hill at 55 mph. On a 70 MPH interstate, that's just no fun.

Re:realistic specs??

[egburr]

How far do I travel in 6 seconds on the on-ramp? Oh, maybe 50-100 feet or so, I'd guess, on a good day.

It takes me 2-5 minutes to merge into highway traffic regardless of the length of the on-ramp. Traveling at 5 MPH trying to find a gap between all the other cars while some of those cars are trying to merge onto the off-ramp takes a good amount of time.

If I entered the on-ramp at 30 MPH, I'd leave skid marks from braking to avoid hitting the cars in front of me. Some days I don't even come close to reaching 60 in the 14 miles I drive on the highway.

To be fair, there are also some days where I've hit 80 before moving over and slowing down once I realized how fast I was going. Though in general, if we're going 60 for a long stretch, I'm happy.

Re:realistic specs??

[downhole]

You have to remember that the top speed is the absolute maximum speed in ideal conditions - flat road in good condition, lots of time to accelerate, negligible wind, minimal load (empty except for the driver). If you build a car with a top speed of 80, then the actual top speed in everyday conditions will often be significantly less. What if you're going up a hill? What if you're taking the family on a vacation and have 5 people plus luggage in the car? What if you'd like to be able to reach 80 in under 3 minutes? What if there's a headwind? Any one of those exceptions could knock your top speed down significantly. Add in a passenger or two and some stuff plus onramp hills on freeways, and you may have trouble doing 60 in a car with a top speed of 80.

There's also the factor that the rest of the vehicle is probably designed around the top speed. Brakes, suspension, tires, steering, frame stiffness, etc, may be designed to be just barely good enough at the top speed. It's probably not much fun to have to swerve to avoid an accident at the vehicle's top speed.

I would expect that it's also pretty hard to get decent fuel economy at top speed. To reach that speed, the engine will have to run at a fairly high RPM level, near it's power peak. But for good fuel economy and a reasonable noise level, you'll want to be running at lower RPMs, meaning less power available.

Note that vehicles with a limited top speed do it electronically, rather then by limiting engine power or available gearing. Yeah, I think that a 100MPH top speed is just barely enough for a safe everyday vehicle.

Re:realistic specs??

[egburr]

Checking wikipedia (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limit) you can see that 130 km/h (80.8 mph) is pretty much a worldwide upper limit on major freeway speed limits. In fact, only Indonesia breaks that, and only by 10 km/h (6.2 mph), and only Germany does not have an explicit upper limit. Considering that maximum allowed limit, considering all the freeways that are set lower than the maximum allowed limit, and considering all the in-city roads that overwhelmingly outnumber those freeways in total mileage, then I'll stick with the 99.99% number.

Re:realistic specs??

[egburr]

I live in Dallas. The speed-limit of 60 on the freeways is meaningless. Unless there is a traffic jam people are going 70+ in the slow lane. Most large cities are the same way.

I used to live in Dallas. Usually, the only time I saw that kind of speed was between 11pm and 5am. Otherwise, it was more like 30-50 mph most of the time. Back then I had a car that would struggle to hit 70; I seldom had to worry about it.

Re:realistic specs??

[indros13]

To be the devil's advocate, they want this because not all drivers are like you - content to accelerate slower and go slower.

What it comes down to is finding a compromise between fuel efficiency and something people will buy. I'd venture that most Americans are sadly not willing to accept your parameters for a vehicle.

Re:realistic specs??

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe it has something to do with not running the motor at full capacity at highway speeds, obviously running it at 75% capacity (of 100mph) it will last longer than if pushed to the red for extended periods of time.

Re:realistic specs??

[BrianGKUAC]

(that only police cars... I think it's quite likely that you've hit the nail on the head.

Police cars are derived from standard consumer-grade vehicles. Do you really think they should be permanently limited to Crown Vics? We have a couple of highway patrol people here that drive vehicles non-standard to police cars... one is an Impreza WRX STI, the other a 2004 Mustang Cobra. Wouldn't it be great if they could carry on with their duties without burning 91 octane gas at 18 MPG?

Re:realistic specs??

[gnasher719]

Also if your car can't go 100. How's it going to have the power to stay with traffic on a hill. Have a look at diesel engines. They have all the power at low RPM. Depending on the design, a diesel engine that runs out of steam at 100 mph will overtake you easily on a steep hill.

Re:realistic specs??

[Monkelectric]

I drive a car with 287hp. It does 0-60 in 5.8 seconds, and a quarter mile in 14 seconds, at 99.3 mph. My quick maneuverable car has gotten me out of *MANY* potential accidents. There's no way I'd drive a car that took 12 seconds to get to 60, let alone 20.

Re:realistic specs??

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of the highways where I live, the on-ramps merge into an existing lane, whereas most I've seen lead on to their own lane for a good couple miles or so before forcing the merge. So if you went at 60mph up on some of these roads here you would smack another car. (Houston, US-59 @ Fountain View)

Re:realistic specs??

[suggsjc]

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you but...

Why don't they also drop the MPG requirements to 50mpg as well, then give the money to charity?

Look, they are the ones ponying up $10M, so they should be able to set whatever arbitrary rules they want. Just because you personally don't want (or think you want) that extra power or speed doesn't mean that they aren't worthwhile. I would rather 75MPG, 125mph 0-60 in under 8 seconds. Bottom line, they had to make some tradeoffs here and there, but since this is targeting the mainstream public then it will always come down to that...tradeoffs.

Re:realistic specs??

[egburr]

Who in the mainstream public goes 125mph and 0-60 in 8 seconds? Who in the mainstream public goes 100mph? The mainstream public travels on city roads in the 30-55mph range and highways in the 50-80mph range. The mainstream public needs to accelerate no faster than the car in front of them. I questioned the specs specifically because they did not appear relevant to the mainstream. You obviously aren't mainstream; where are you driving anyway?

Re:realistic specs??

[egburr]

I don't know what most Americans would accept, but I suspect that the price of the vehicle would play a much larger role in the decision than the specs as long as the specs met their needs.

The couple times I have been to the dealer looking at new cars, they tried to wow me with all the impressive numbers. None of those times were they able to answer my question "and just where would I need that?". I always ended up with a cheaper car that met my needs: driving on U.S. roads, both city and highway. I have yet to find a place where I need such acceleration or any place where I can achieve those speeds without getting a huge ticket and probably jail time.

Re:realistic specs??

[egburr]

Checking wikipedia (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limit) you can see that 130 km/h (80.8 mph) is pretty much a worldwide upper limit on major freeway speed limits. In fact, only Indonesia breaks that, and only by 10 km/h (6.2 mph), and only Germany does not have an explicit upper limit, and even then only on certain major freeways. Considering that maximum allowed limit, considering all the freeways that are set lower than the maximum allowed limit, and considering all the in-city roads that overwhelmingly outnumber those freeways in total mileage, then I'll stick with the 99.99% number.

Re:realistic specs??

[Anonymous Coward]

I would love to get 100 MPG, but why do they require acceleration to 60 in 12 seconds? 15-20 seconds would be just fine. I agree, the Smart CDI, which is quite common in Canada, accelerates to 60mph in 19.8 seconds. I see about 3 Smarts a week and they don't slow down our traffic flow. Even though the Smarts cannot exceed 75 MPH due to a built-in governor, they still are capable of cruising on the highway at or above the speed limit (which is within 100km/h or 62MPH here in Canada). Most people are not even aware of the Smart's 19.8 second acceleration time.

However, if the X-Prize cars accelerate to 60mph in more than 15 seconds, then most Americans will basically say "Hey! A 100mpg car! Wait a minute.. 15-20 seconds to 60mph? I knew there was a catch." These 100MPG cars will still look like incomplete technology.

If the X-Prize competitors can achieve 100MPG with 0-60mph in under 12 seconds, then more Americans will view these cars as viable replacements for their existing 5-10 second cars (they tend to care more about 0-60mph times than other countries). At least X-Prize will show what the cars are capable of. If production 100MPG cars are 20 seconds to keep costs down, then some people will still buy it.

Re:realistic specs??

[deadweight]

My car goes 145 MPH. This makes for comfortable 65-85 MPH cruising. I once drove a Diesel VW with a top speed of around 70 from FL to DC and it SUCKED. Driving a car over about 75% of the top speed is NO fun. BTW, I used to have an old and very light Porsche that had no problem getting over 38 MPG and going like a bat out of hell :)

Re:realistic specs??

[suggsjc]

Who in the mainstream public goes 125mph and 0-60 in 8 seconds?

I for one do 0-60 in less than 8 seconds...no comment on the speed.

Anyway, it was brought up in another response but if people do travel (as you admit) 80mph then they need to be able to sustain that speed while also going up hills, therefore 100mph isn't a ridiculous requirement. I get really annoyed at people who are constantly speeding up/slowing down as they go up and down hills...use the cruise control.

You obviously aren't mainstream;

I don't know if I ever really want to be mainstream either, haha. No, I'm not one of those jerks who is flying by people at insane speeds, especially when the traffic is heavy. But I will if I can find a group moving "faster" join in.

Re:realistic specs??

[bobdotorg]

. You'd need 6 seconds to do that. How far would you travel in those 6 seconds?

I'm in agreement that 0-60 over 12 seconds makes for unsafe (or at least nervous) merging, but your math is off.

Linear acceleration from 30 to 60 implies an average speed of 45 mph, or 80 seconds per mile.

Six seconds of this would be 6 / 80 = 0.075 = 396 feet.

Ten seconds of this is an eighth of a mile, or 660 feet.

On flat ground this is marginal, but an uphill onramp on to The 710 freeway here in Los Angeles would be a white knuckle experience.

Re:realistic specs??

[matfud]

Especially since many drivers don't or won't drive at any where near those speeds.

The UK has a 70 mph speed limit (on motorways) for cars but lorries (trucks) and vehicles towing have a speed limit of 60 mph. Lorries have limiters to stop them exceeding that (and data loggers to ensure driver times are not exceeded). So, in the UK, there is always going to be traffic travelling at no more then 60 mph even though many car drivers exceed the speed 70mph speed limit by 20 to 40 mph (90 to 110 mph).

The concept of "if every one travels at the same speed (no matter what speed that is) they are safer" is just not true in the UK as not everyone can travel at the same speed.

Cars that have a max speed of 70 or 80 mph are quite common here.

Re:realistic specs??

[Anonymous Coward]

Had you considered that you may not need to tow 2.5 tonnes up a hill at more then 60 mph?

Re:realistic specs??

[jawtheshark]

60 miles per hour is about 27m/s. Assume you need 20 seconds to get there. That's an acceleration of 1.35 m/(s^2). What interests us now is the travelled distance to measure how long the ramp must be. You do this with s=Vo*t+((a*t^2)/2). I'm going to be silly and assume that Vo=0, which is pretty much never the case when merging on a highway. So, remains: s=((a*(t^2)/2). We know a, we know t and as such we can calculate s. s=(1.35*(20^2))/2 => s=270 metres.

Are you telling me that ramps are shorter than 300 yards?

So, 20 seconds should be safe, assuming ramps of 300 yards or more.

Water4gas Scam Reviewed

[bihoy]

Is Water4gas a scam or does it increase your mpg using cutting edge techniques?
A Certified Master Mechanics review of the water4gas system.

http://www.auto-facts.org/water4gas-scam.html

I could do that...

[Thelasko]

Just modify an old Volkswagen TDI. The problem is making a 100MPG car that meets the USA safety and emissions standards. The car that results from this challenge won't be practical for those two simple reasons.

Re:I could do that...

[SaDan]

I'd think a diesel electric hybrid along the lines of the Chevrolet Volt would probably hit 100mpg fairly easily. It's supposed to get 60mpg, and that's with a 1.0L turbocharged gasoline engine.

Re:I could do that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually... the vehicle needs to meet USA and European safety regulations. Strict emission standards need to be met too.

Re:I could do that...

[bughunter]

Emissions aren't necessarily a problem. The more efficient an engine is, the cleaner the exhaust.

Safety, on the other hand... well, it's probably a safe prediction to say that, to help achieve the 100MPG requirement, many designers will take structural inspiration from modern aluminum beer can technology.

Re:I could do that...

[Zuato]

The problem with the Volt at the moment is it is vaporware. GM has no working model of the thing and they were just quoted form the New York auto show as saying the price is now going to be in the $40,000 USD range and claimed at that price they still wouldn't make a profit on it initially.

Re:I could do that...

[Thelasko]

Emissions aren't necessarily a problem. The more efficient an engine is, the cleaner the exhaust.

In theory, it should work that way. In real world, using air breathing engines, it becomes more difficult. The atmosphere has the unfortunate characteristic of being mostly nitrogen. While the carbon and hydrogen are trying to bond with oxygen the nitrogen tends to get in the way and bond with the oxygen instead. The nitrogen is less likely to bond with the oxygen at lower temperature's and pressures so they must be used to prevent pollution. Higher temperatures and pressures are better for extracting work and therefore a trade off must be made.

Re:I could do that...

[huckamania]

Hummers are made out of aluminum and are quite tough. I drove over the front end of a corvette during my road test in 29 palms and there was only paint damage to the humvee. The corvette was not so lucky and the driver even less so, since it turned out to be his fault.

He got really mad when my friend showed up with a camera but c'est la vie.

Re:I could do that...

[Ironsides]

Can you check or post your link for that 60mpg figure? From what I remember, it's supposed to be 50mpg and I've been following it as much as I can.

Re:I could do that...

[Ironsides]

many designers will take structural inspiration from modern aluminum beer can technology.

Sounds like a great way to make a car that is easily crushed.

Re:I could do that...

[bughunter]

Impressive, but I'm not referring to aluminum hummer design. I'm talking about aluminum beer can design.

The link is to an abstract only page, but the abstract conveys my point.

Re:I could do that...

[Hillgiant]

I have my doubts about that 50mpg figure. The last 1L production vehicle I can recall was the '00 Chevy Metro. It got a combined 41mpg. Figuring that diesels tend to be more efficient than gas engines and hybrids further improve the efficiency, I find the 60mpg number a little more believable. However, since not even prototypes exist (to my knowledge) we are relying on what some PR flack may or may not remember during the briefing with the engineers. OTOH, given all of the above I don't see where they are going to find another 40mpg of improved efficiency.

Re:I could do that...

[huckamania]

I'm not sure what your point is. My point was that aluminum is used in hummers to lower the weight in a way that doesn't sacrifice strength. I'm sure the lower weight probably improves gas mileage.

I'd like to know what your point is, cause I thought you were saying they would have to skimp on safety.

Re:I could do that...

[Ironsides]

Prototypes do exist and the PR is somewhat coming from the engineers. Part of the 50mpg figure deals with using an aerodynamic frame. The current public pictures designs are being reworked as they weren't very aerodynamic. The VP in charge joked it might have been more aerodynamic if they put it in the wind tunnel backwards. 50mpg is possible. The gasoline generator will always see a steady load. It won't have to rev up or down during use and so will be able to run at it's most efficient RPM at it's most efficient load. Remember, it's generating electricity, not a direct drive.

Some figures based on the expected specs of the Volt:
40miles on 8kwh. 5 miles/kwh. 10kwh/gallon gas. Gas 125,000 BTU/gallon=36.15kwh. 10kwh/3615kwh=28% efficiency. That is possible on Gasoline and it doesn't even include power recovered from regenerative breaking, which would further decrease the required generator efficiency. It's getting the 5miles/kwh that is the harder part.

Re:I could do that...

[bughunter]

Aluminum beer can design, as in using only the absolute minimum amount of material necessary to accomplish the primary job (keeping the contents all in one piece during normal travel) with no consideration of unusual circumstances. (Have you ever dropped an unopened diet coke or Heineken can from counter height onto concrete?)

It's a limited metaphor, intended primarily for dry humor.

For full humorous effect, consider if the aluminum can metaphor were extended to its full meaning: The passengers would have to press on the walls from the inside to give the car the necessary rigidity to withstand acceleration and braking. If the car were to hit anything, the passengers would spray outward in a fine, high pressure stream. And this result can be used intentionally to "shotgun" the passengers, by punching a hole in the side and opening a door.

Re:I could do that...

[tknd]

Aptera is already pretty close. Their prototype is real and working and they're claiming a 300mpg rating with 2.5 seats, 3 wheels, and a hybrid electricity/gasoline model. They are building to California's standards so they will probably pass all other standards the US has.

Draft Guidelines

[ryanguill]

Draft Guidelines can be found here: http://www.progressiveautoxprize.org/auto/prize-details/draft-guidelines [PDF Warning]

Re:Draft Guidelines

[Thelasko]

Mod up please so others may read the rules! Note: This is referring to a draft of the rules not drafting other cars (like in NASCAR).

Audio system

[PaulG.1]

"must have an audio system ..." And how vague can that be? I can hook up my iPod Shuttle to speakers and call it an "audio system".

Nitpicking but...

[rolfwind]

for a commercially viable car (which I assume they are going for), shouldn't the range be more like 300 miles? 200 seems a little low for some reason and the lowest range I got on any number of gasoline cars was maybe 260-280....

Re:Nitpicking but...

[Anonymous Coward]

200 miles would allow 3 hours of highway driving between fill-ups, not a particular hardship even on road trips. It is also more than sufficient for almost any commuting needs, and most long commuters would pass a gas station regularly anyway. I for one would rather do twice as many $10-15 fill ups as $40-50 fill ups.

Missing specification

[OglinTatas]

"...and have a minimum top speed of 100 miles per hour..."

Do they say how high the cliff is allowed to be?

Re:Missing specification

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they don't, you can probably choose your cliff. However, the top speed is determined as the average of your car going both ways within 30 minutes.

Electrolysis needs fuel

[Joce640k]

You're putting in fuel at two different places. How hard is this to see?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Gas turbines vs reciprocating

[bigdanmoody]

Seeing as how gas turbines are already so much more efficient than standard reciprocating engines, I would be interested to see a hybrid that runs the alternators with a gas turbine. A very small turbine would be adequate for the task. I suppose the problems would be the noise levels and the increased maintenance costs, with the benefits of increased efficiency and the ability to run on just about any liquid fuel available.

Re:Gas turbines vs reciprocating

[Alioth]

Small gas turbines might be smooth, but efficient they are most definitely NOT. Reciprocating engines are miles ahead of turbines in terms of thermodynamic efficiency.

Gas turbines only start getting efficient when you're talking about a Rolls-Royce Trent 700 or a GE90.

Re:Gas turbines vs reciprocating

[icegreentea]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but don't gas turbines effectively work as an on and off engine? From what I remember about the M1 Abrams (powered by a gas turbine), its fuel consumption is pretty much the same from idle to max speed, making it far more efficient going 70mph than diseal tanks, but utterly crap the rest of the time. It's the reason why they installed an alternate powerpack to provide power to onboard electronics while the gas turbine was off. Also, I have a feeling the exhaust would be killer in a city.

Uh

[j.a.mcguire]

Is something missing, what's the point in this? Doesn't just about every car in existance cover this criteria? I'll just debadge my Fiat Punto take it along and say I invented it.

Re:Uh

[Anonymous Coward]

Does you Fiat Punto get 100MPG?

RTFA - Or any of the previous comments...

X Prize Cars

[EricBoyd]

I've been chronicling the Automotive X Prize for months over at X Prize Cars. At X Prize Cars you can read about the various teams, Compare many of them side-by-side, and follow the news. The most impressive are of course the Tesla, Aptera, and the FuelVapor Technologies, which is actually on exhibit here at the New York Auto Show. But many other teams have cool cars as well - and it's still early, the official entry process is due to be announced today! Also, if you're curious about the rules, I have a handy AXP rules summary page.

Re:X Prize Cars

[Alioth]

How can the Aptera even qualify? It doesn't have enough wheels (it needs 4 or more, I count only three).

2 real world requirements

[Anonymous Coward]

There really should be 2 more requirements for this prize to make it practical in the real world:
1). Should be able to pass a minimal crash safety test.
2). Should have a reasonable mass production cost.

Easy

[jlebrech]

Just make sure it doesnt use liquids or a gallon volume of whatever fuel it needs.

What is the maximum achievable efficiency?

[jopet]

Has anyone better in physics than me already calculated what is the maximum theoretically achievable efficiency?
Would be interesting to see how close we already are.

Re:What is the maximum achievable efficiency?

[ChrisMaple]

It depends too heavily on available technology and what is considered adequately practical to provide a maximum figure for MPG. At highway speeds for most cars, air drag dominates losses. Air drag could be reduced by a factor of ten, but the resultant shape would not be practical and it probably wouldn't be safe. Tire drag is significant, but improved tires have some disadvantages and steel wheels on rails aren't practical. More efficient engines and better use of the engines is an area for improvement, but even perfect engines won't give more than a 5X improvement. Gear losses also factor in, but there's only a few percent available there.

The article mentioned figures of 200 MPG for aggresive use of existing production technology at speeds where air drag isn't much of a factor. I'd guess you could double that with tech advances.

One problem is that hills and snow can't be removed by improved technology, and practical driving will never approach what can be achieved on a flat, ideal course.

Re:What is the maximum achievable efficiency?

[ChrisMaple]

Oops! Sorry, "the article" I referred to was something linked to by another poster.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/01/king_of_the_hypermilers.html

Re:What is the maximum achievable efficiency?

[gnasher719]

It depends too heavily on available technology and what is considered adequately practical to provide a maximum figure for MPG. At highway speeds for most cars, air drag dominates losses. Air drag could be reduced by a factor of ten, but the resultant shape would not be practical and it probably wouldn't be safe. There is a very safe, but frightening method to reduce drag: Drive bumper on bumper. Best to do it in groups of three or four. You'd have to redesign the bumpers so this can be done without cosmetic or actual damage; some nice computer control would help so that for example brakes and acceleration are coordinated properly, but it would safe lots of fuel.

Rule summary

[Thelasko]

Here is a brief summary of the rules as taken from the draft on X-Prise website.
Fuel economy >100MPGe
4+ passengers
Must meet US EPA Tier II bin 5
Must meet US safety regulations
Must have features considered standard in today's automobiles at a cost that is not prohibitively expensive, and must provide a business case proving so.

There should be another qualification...

[GigG]

It should be a vehicle that enough people would buy to be practical to build. And 200 miles is NOT enough.

Re:There should be another qualification...

[ShadowsHawk]

It would be more than enough to get most people to and from work. I would have to work the numbers, but I could live with buying a second car if it more than tripled my MPG.

water 4 gas

[xj]

Well conservation of energy for one. The energy required to split water in to hydrogen and oxygen is greater than the energy you get from burning it otherwise we'd all have perpetual motion machines running in our back yard.

Flow rate.
Say an engine has a displacement of 3 liters and is operating at 2000 rpm.
3 liters * 2000 rpm /2 (as this is a 4 stroke engine) * .85 (assume this is not turbo charged so the cylinder is never completely full) = 2550 liters of air per min.

the electric power required to electrolyze the hydrogen equivalent to 1 gallon of gasoline is equal to (500 moles) x (0.06587 kWh/mole) = 32.935 kWh, and the approximate cost of that power = (32.935 kWh)
credit to this site http://www.stardrivedevice.com/electrolysis.html

How much current can you alternator put out? Maybe 100 amps. How much hydrogen could your car generate per min? How much power can your alternator produce 100A *13.7V 1.37 KW

How much hydrogen could your car produce per min?
1.37 * (.06587 kWh/mole) / 60min/hr * 22.4 liters/mol = 0.033 liters of hydrogen per min
Compare this to the number above for the volume of air entering the engine.

How much hydrogen would one need to run a vehicle?

If 500 mol of hydrogen = 1 gallon of gasoline
If the vehicle gets 30 mpg at 60 mph = 2 gallons of gasoline per hr or 1000 mol of hydrogen per hr * 22.4 liters / mol / 60 min / hr = 373 lites per min of hydrogen

Compare this to the number above.
If anything all those hydrogen generator scams are going to do is create a vacuum leak that will turn on your check engine light.

It's already here ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Opel Eco Speedster can already do this:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02/the-opel-eco-speedster.php

just increase the storage space and you have a winner!

Well its kind of like the POINT

[Shivetya]

of the damn contest, the car has to be practical, has to be able to be manufactured on a large scale.

Apparently quite a few companies think they can meet that objective.

Re:Well its kind of like the POINT

[Thelasko]

I understand that, however, the article seems to ignore that critical point.

Safety standards?

[hernick]

I wonder, must the winner meet recognized safety standards to win the prize? It's considerably easier to design a vehicle that won't ever come close to government crash standards and thus couldn't possibly be licensed as a car... If the winner builds a glorified ultralight autorickshaw that would probably kill all occupants in case of a low-speed collision with a Pinto, some kind of 3-wheel motorcycle with a full fairing or some other contraption that is "unsafe at any speed", then I see little point to this contest.

The news article didn't even mention safety, so I went looking on the X-Prize site for additional information, which I found here http://www.progressiveautoxprize.org/auto/prize-details/draft-guidelines . "Vehicles must be designed to meet safety regulations in the U.S. and other markets."

Well, looks like I answered my own question. The car does have to meet safety standards. Great contest then... Go X-Prize!

No, seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Buy a VW Polo SE
2) Equip it with an electric hybrid system and a sleek body kit
3) $10m

Justification: If a civic gets 26/34, and a hybrid civic gets 40/45 then we're looking at a 50%/33% increase in milage for the same car. The Polo SE gets 51/74, * 1.5/1.33 = 76.5/98.4 . Surely that last 1.6mpg can be achieved with high effeciency tires and a lower drag coef.

It can't really be that easy, can it?

Mod parent up!

[smellsofbikes]

Sure wish I had mod points today.

KE = 1/2*M*V*V: kinetic energy rises as the square of the speed. Claiming that speed isn't inherently dangerous is like claiming jumping off buildings isn't inherently dangerous. While it might be possible, though skill and safety equipment, to minimize that danger, it still clearly rises with speed.
Add to that, that while well-trained drivers with excellent reflexes might be capable of driving at high speeds safely, many inexperienced drivers with below-average skills or reflexes cannot, and they may not be aware that they cannot. Most people think they're excellent drivers, even people who clearly aren't.

I'd love to see driver tests done like pilot tests: every two years (or more often for professional drivers) complete retest, and loss of driving privileges until the driver takes classes and passes the retest.

Re:Mod parent up!

[Wolvey]

I would love to see a strict driving test for an 'elite' license that allowed you to drive 20mph over the speed limit on freeways in proper conditions, pass through a red light if traffic is completely clear, etc. I'd pay an extra $500 for such a license in a heartbeat.

Re:Mod parent up!

[AGMW]

KE = 1/2*M*V*V: kinetic energy rises as the square of the speed.

Sorry, but it is quite obvious that if you come to a sudden stop that the speed you were travelling at will have an adverse effect on the amount of damage you are likely to sustain, but that doesn't mean that it was the speed that was dangerous.

If speed were inherently dangerous then flying would be somewhat less popular than it is! The fact that there are seldom any survivors when an airplane crashes doesn't make you suddenly say flying is unsafe because of the speed, or indeed the height, at which they fly. For safety reasons, all flights will now be restricted to 10 feet off the ground and an airspeed of 70 MPH - oh please don't suggest it to the UK Government as they may well enforce it!

... well-trained drivers with excellent reflexes might be capable of driving at high speeds safely ...

Sure, suitably clear road, suitable weather conditions, suitable light, suitable car, suitable driver - kinda what I was hinting at. Sure, most drivers aren't as good as they think they are but cars have come on in leaps and bounds since the arbitrary 70MPH limit was imposed. I try to drive within the prevailing conditions and often drive slower than the posted limit because it is safer to do so.

Re:Mod parent up!

[smellsofbikes]

>Sorry, but it is quite obvious that if you come to a sudden stop that the speed you were travelling at will have an adverse effect on the amount of damage you are likely to sustain, but that doesn't mean that it was the speed that was dangerous.

I literally don't understand what you're claiming here.
Kinetic energy rises with speed. Kinetic energy is, indeed, inherently dangerous. If you are moving, you are in more danger than if you're not moving. The faster you're moving, the more danger you're in. Kinetic energy is an axiom of physics. I can't argue to convince you of this any more than I can argue to convince you that parallel lines don't intersect.

As a pilot I can tell you some interesting things about flying.
Light Aircraft Crash: A Case History Of Injuries
Table 2: "Factors Influencing Severity Of Crash". #1: Aircraft Speed. Direct ratio.

The faster you're going, the more likely you are to die.

Or, back to cars,
Speeding affects not only people in cars but also pedestrians and motorcyclists, who are especially vulnerable. The faster a car goes, the greater the likelihood of a pedestrian death. (Death of car occupants is 20 times more likely in a crash with an impact speed of 50 miles an hour than with an impact speed of 20 miles an hour.).

So, physics theory says higher speed is more dangerous. Experimental evidence says higher speed is more dangerous. My own personal experience from bike racing says higher speed crashes have hurt me worse.

By the way, back to airplanes again -- from the same table as the first link, flying 10 feet off the ground would, indeed, be safer. Item #2 is impact angle, and that again they claim is a direct ratio: the higher the angle, the worse the crash. I think they're linearizing inappropriately and it's probably closer to sin(angle), but the general idea is certainly true: if you hit flat and fast you're much better off than hitting vertical and slow, but hitting flat and slow is by far the best way of all to crash -- because it's basically a landing. I can tell you from personal experience that flat fast landings *suck*.

Re:Mod parent up!

[smellsofbikes]

Drat, for some reason it deleted the link to the second quote.

"Speeding affects not only people in cars but also pedestrians and motorcyclists, who are especially vulnerable. The faster a car goes, the greater the likelihood of a pedestrian death. (Death of car occupants is 20 times more likely in a crash with an impact speed of 50 miles an hour than with an impact speed of 20 miles an hour.)"

Re:Mod parent up!

[AGMW]

I guess I'm trying to suggest that it is the change in kinetic energy that is the problem. Sure, the faster a body is travelling the more kinetic energy it will have, which offers the potential for greater damage, but only when the kinetic energy changes - ie when you hit something.

But I don't suppose I can really argue that kinetic energy isn't inherently dangerous! LOL.

Parallel lines won't intersect in flat space, but what about parallel lines within (positively) curved spacetime? Oh dear ... yes, then they may intersect.

Re:Mod parent up!

[AGMW]

... and ...

Kinetic energy rises with speed. Kinetic energy is, indeed, inherently dangerous.

Kinetic energy also rises with mass, and yet people feel safer (actually, mostly are safer!) in larger vehicles!

So we should obviously ban speed and mass in cars. Look out for Mass Cameras on the motorways sometime soon, and best avoid that extra donut if you're going to be driving anywhere!

... and ... The faster you're going, the more likely you are to die.

That is simply not true, as demonstrated by flying being, statistically, the safest form of travel! Sure, the faster you are going when you have an accident the more likely you are to die ... but on a suitably empty motorway, in reasonable conditions ... you are unlikely to have an accident!

Doesn't the free market already offer this?

[edmicman]

I don't get it....wouldn't the market dictate progress for massive fuel efficiency gains? Do you think if people were honest-to-goodness clamoring for 200mpg alternative vehicles, the companies would already be doing it? I would think there's a much greater reward than $10M that the market would provide. You don't think that if GM or Ford or Honda or Toyota or Joe Garage inventor could come up with a *normal* vehicle that fit cars, trucks, and SUVs, and make it get 100+ mpg, all for a competitive cost (ie, same as or less than our cars are now) that they wouldn't?

The truth is, as much as the idealists would like to think otherwise, price and value are running the show. Fuel efficiency is an added bonus, and as gas gets more expensive this will only increase. Although, I honestly don't see it REALLY making a difference until gas gets $20+/gallon, maybe more. Think about it - it sucks paying $3 a gallon, but we do it because we have to. If it jumped to $5, it would suck even more, but we'd still pay it because hey, most people gotta get to work somehow and that's the only option. Rising gas prices crimp our lifestyles that we've chosen, but at what actual price point does the price of gas and the cost of driving actually truly outweigh the need for your chosen employment? For the majority of people? The automakers, all of them, are only giving the people what they want.

Back on topic, I don't really see this as anything more than a novelty, and a stupid one at that. How much would GM make if tomorrow they released say an Impala priced at the same it is today, but with 200mpg, and where you don't have to change your driving habits or make any radical fueling style changes. You can "fill" it up the same places you can now; i.e., it's not more work for you the consumer. Wouldn't that be worth a heck of a lot more than $10M? You don't think they're already thinking about this?

The point is people want fuel economy and savings, but they don't want to drastically change their lifestyles, rightfully so. I want the insanely high Miles Per Fillup. But I want to pay a comparable price to what today's average "normal" car sells for...a $5-10k premium is too much. I want the ease of being able to refuel it anywhere - I don't want to have to come back to my home base, or only be able to go to certain filling stations. And I want this in any vehicle I choose - be it car, truck, van, SUV, motorcycle, etc. Why does fuel efficiency have to equal econobox? Why can't I have a 200mpg Hummer? This isn't rocket science, and this "prize" isn't going to push the revolution any faster.

Re:Doesn't the free market already offer this?

[Vegeta99]

* Most people probably couldn't pass a college algebra class, so they wouldn't be able to figure out for themselves how long they'd have to own the $30,000, 200MPG car for it to be a better buy than the $18,000, 23MPG car.

* Joe Inventor is going to have to work very, very, very hard to make his jury-rigged Corolla that gets 200MPG into a mass-production-ready, safe, automobile. And that's the easy part. Joe Inventor now has to fund the building of a factory and THEN he can think about building some cars.

* GM, Ford, Toyota, whoever doesn't give a fuck how much it costs you to drive your car. They don't pay for the gas. Not only that, but I'd be willing to bet that the Big Three car companies and the oil companies have their fingers buried up each other's asses so far they can't count the stock certificates without an accountant. Therefore, they're even less likely to do something for the environment.

* There is a market for illegal drugs. Why does the government regulate THAT? Shouldn't the market just work itself out? Eventually all the addicts will get cancer and die. THERE IT IS! The dickbag heroin addicts are going to cost ME money in the end. Analogy sure applies here: Dickbag driving his H2 is going to pollute MY air, and raise MY (and everyone else's) chances of getting cancer. Therefore, the government is right to regulate emissions. Oh, wait, this isn't about emissions? It's about a random prize being offered for doing something progressive in order to (maybe) spur development of commercial high-efficiency cars? Oh. Then what's the issue?

DISCLAIMER: I drive a rear-wheel-drive, V8 vehicle that gets only about 15MPG in town (26+ highway).

Re:Doesn't the free market already offer this?

[Migraineman]

I don't get it....wouldn't the market dictate progress for massive fuel efficiency gains?

Unfortunately, this isn't a free market environment. It's heavily regulated by the gub'ment. Auto manufacturers have exactly zero incentive to reduce your consumable spending, to make your driving experience better, etc. Their involvement ends at the sale. Fuel economy is a sales tool, but it pales in comparison to body styling, paint color, interior trim options. Don't believe me? Go "price your vehicle" at any online manufacturer's website. The first two selections are "sport package upgrades" and "paint color." Why? Because the customers have been taught not to consider pesky things like annual consumable expenditures. None of the manufacturers make it easy to sort cars based on fuel economy ...

Increasing fuel economy is a touchy subject, because the car manufacturers have ties into Big Oil. Example - Jeep introduced a crummy Italian diesel engine into the 2005 Liberty lineup. Mileage for the 2.5L CRD engine was about 25MPG, compared to about 19MPG for the 3.7L gasoline V6. Demand for this vehicle configuration was overwhelming. So Chrysler ramped-up production in response, right? Nope. They killed it. Seems counter-intuitive, until you consider that introducing a high-mileage diesel into the SUV space alters the balance in a way that upsets Big Auto Makers and Big Oil Producers. I would have loved to see Chrysler stuff the Mercedes E-class diesel into their cars, but that's hoping too much.

Re:Doesn't the free market already offer this?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "Free Market" is hardly free, the gasoline lifestyle is completely government subsidized on all fronts and encouraged
by shear lack of oversight, vision and leadership. If the true costs were passed down to consumers in REAL-TIME, we would have 100mpg cars, but instead we are cashing out the future - if we don't work on it now, we won't get the chance to have ANY choice in the future.

From everything the government is doing ($3 trillion and counting in Iraq) and NOT doing (ie regulation, concern about
global warming/climate change, requiring speed limits/weight restrictions/mileage) we are headed for a "Road Warrior" type
of Free Market - get your feathers and cross-bows ready to keep the Hummer moving!!

Re:Doesn't the free market already offer this?

[cylcyl]

Your idea is true if the environment truly rewards the forward looking. Large companies don't like risks because they have a great deal to lose. So, they do things like lay-offs, off-shoring to cut costs because that is the least risky way to increase profit in the short term.

Sure, if a 200mpg car came out tomorrow, there will be massive profits. But that assumes that the technology to achieve it is already a commodity. In reality, there will be years of research before this happens. But, to a company just looking at the next quarter, it is an insane risk that the shareholders would not stand for.

However, what a prize like this does is that it creates a risk to the company that if they don't start investing in it, someone else will and reap the guaranteed $10M and vast competitive advantage. Also, this raises the awareness of the expected goal so when investors evaluate which group to fund, they can evaluate rationally. Without something like this, companies are just as happy not doing anything because they think that it's so hard that no one would take on the risk to invest in it.

Re:Doesn't the free market already offer this?

[hyades1]

You think the automobile industry functions in a free market? Your naivety is touching. Wasn't it Lee Iacocca who simply marched up to Capitol Hill and demanded that U.S. taxpayers bail Chrysler out because they didn't dare let it fail?

Price and value are running the show? Oh, please! I suppose you also believe it was all those demonstrations where consumers demanded cars that sustain $2,500 damage in 5 mile per hour collisions that forced the auto companies to deliver such technological wonders to the clamoring masses.

And have you noticed that Volkswagen and Mercedes have trouble selling cars with diesel engines? Not all gas stations offer a diesel pump.

Re:Doesn't the free market already offer this?

[Shotgun]

Right on, edmicman.

And just one contest won't change much. Unlike space travel, this isn't unexplored territory that we're covering here. All the low hanging fruit was found and picked long ago. All the improvements you will see will be incremental and slow in coming.

In my ideal world, they would hold a NASCAR race where each car got just a little less fuel than necessary to finish the race (next year, each car would get a liter less if someone finishes with a running engine). A protected foot track on the inside would allow drivers to finish the race on foot if they ran out of gas. Remove the idiotic restrictor plate rule that has made it the most boring "sport" ever created.

The pressure now is to get within running distance first. Power is still important. Speed is important. Actually finishing is important.

Not only would this be good for the environment when you see some of the most gifted engineers in the world being struggling for new ways to save fuel, but it would also be good for NASCAR.

-The Greenies would just have to STFU.
-Drivers would now deserve the title "athlete".
-Different strategies would spread the cars out, and actually allow a surprise finish occasionally (vs the current "moving clump" they like to call a race).
-The sport would actually become mildly interesting, because you won't know if a driver is hanging back to conserve fuel and make a big push at the end, or if the leader has some new technology that is going to allow him to stretch his fuel out and maintain it till the end.

Re:Doesn't the free market already offer this?

[amper]

Yes, it's quite clear that you don't get it.

The market forces that are the significant drivers of automotive technology are not, as some would like to believe, in the hands of the consumers. The real forces at work are the relative profits of the competing manufacturers. You severely underestimate the amount of investment it takes to create a new automotive product. Every time a manufacturer retools for a new product, massive amounts of money are required to shift the companies production and retrain workers, create new marketing and advertising, educate dealers and technicians, and so on and so forth.

The first manufacturer to step out of line with their competitors is going to face an incredible amount of risk, and the people that run these corporations rely on consistent profit growth to achieve their astronomical salaries. There is simply no incentive for our corporate leaders to accept the level of risk that such a project would require, given the current market climate.

Re:Doesn't the free market already offer this?

[PieceofLavalamp]

So we shouldn't try because big time companies haven't already created the technology.... Thats it hand over your Geek card and for that matter your Man card too. You just said we shouldn't try to build something bigger, better, faster, stronger, longer, harder, tougher, etc because big business hasn't done it for us already. Next your going to tell me that no one should bother with Linux because it can't be better because Microsoft would have already invented/included all the features in it. Just no.

Re:Doesn't the free market already offer this?

[drew]

Why can't I have a 200mpg Hummer? This isn't rocket science, and this "prize" isn't going to push the revolution any faster.

No, it isn't rocket science. It's basic thermodynamics. A Hummer weighs about 4 tons. It takes a lot of power to move 4 tons of mass, and there's no magical technology out there that can change that. The only way to get 200MPG out of a Hummer would be to find a fuel source that was 15 times more dense than gasoline. You could make small gains with a more efficient engine, but gasoline engines already operate pretty close to their maximum efficiency. Even if you switched to some new engine technology that miraculously gave you a 100% energy conversion ratio, your Hummer would only get about 5 times the miles per gallon that it gets now, which still puts you 125 MPG short of 200. (and that includes hybrids because 100% of the power in a hybrid still comes from gasoline.)

Fuel efficient cars are small because big cars are heavy. Heavy vehicles require more power to move, therefore cannot possibly be as fuel efficient as a small car.

If GM could build a 200MPG Impala, they wouldn't be in the car market anymore, because there are a lot more lucrative places they could sell the technology required to pull that off. (Not that they would miss it - the market has not been kind to them lately...)

Re:Doesn't the free market already offer this?

[Trackster]

I hate to be blasphemous at the shrine of the "Free Market" but here goes:

1) There is no such thing as a "free market" in the sense that only the products that are demanded by consumers are made and successfully sold. If that was the case, the advertising industry would be entirely different and much, much less of a cash cow. Neither would there be so much effort put into applying the principles of psychology and sociology to essentially "convince" the market that a product should be bought.

2) The "free market" is not benevolent; it does not have the best interest of the public at heart. It has good of share holders/plutocrats in mind and nothing else.

I won't go into the engineering, but electrics and series hybrids are actually less expensive to produce than standard ICE cars. That's because they're simpler to design and the components themselves are simpler (Both do away with the transmission and the electric does away with the parts-intensive and inefficient to produce ICE.) There's a lot of lying going on by corporations about electrics being "expensive" to produce. They're not. The batteries are not very expensive either, especially if they _choose_ to mass produce them. The problem they have with electrics in particular, and series hybrids is that they are not as profitable over their life times as standard cars because their parts count is lower (fewer things to break and thus fewer to sell over the life of the vehicle) and that they're so dependable that people won't change cars so readily (again, fewer parts to break). Want proof electrics are cheap to manufacture? Toyota is making a profit on the Prius at $20,000 each despite having a full ICE drive train in addition to a half electric drive train. That's in spite of having developed it as a totally new platform (as opposed to building it on an existing platform).

Our idiotic plutocratic auto company execs were too busy manipulating our government to dole out tax breaks on white elephant gas guzzling (yet highly profitable) SUV's instead of building decent quality, reliable and efficient vehicles. I hate that the workers and the public have to burn for their stupidity and so does the prestigious of our country.

Of course it is

[TheAxeMaster]

Every time I was on it traffic was flowing at 85-90 MPH max. Sometimes it is above 100 MPH in the left hand lane but there are at least two lanes everywhere and the right lanes are generally moving at approximately US highway speed limits. However 100 MPH is not reasonable on a lot of US highways.

This car is available right now ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Ellica from Japan does this already:

http://www.eliica.com/

It gets over 100 mpg equivalent, seats 4 or more passengers, goes 230 mph, has climate control, an audio system, and so on. The only caveat is that it only has a 185 mile range but I'm sure they could squeeze a few more battery cells into the car to increase the range an extra 15 miles.

And unnecessary

[Comboman]

Not just less exciting but also unnecessary. An X-prize is needed to stimulate development in areas like private space travel where there is currently no market. Full efficient cars already have a market and every auto maker is already working this, with or without an X-prize. The real prize (market share) is bigger than anything X-prize is offering, so I fail to see how this creates any extra incentive (other than perhaps the prestige winning and some free advertising).

Re:And unnecessary

[flappinbooger]

very auto maker is already working this, with or without an X-prize

Are they really?

I know that they ARE, yes, working on THINGS that might affect fuel economy. The are doing what is required by law (CAFE standards) and they are R+D'ing alternate fuels. They're toying with hybrids. But are they really?

The X-prize is not a bad idea. I see some advantages to doing the X prize for this.

1) Automakers are mired in corporate inertia, bureaucracy, and shareholders
2) Automakers "might" be somewhat "sympathetic" to big oil. (tinfoil hat)
3) Automakers will kill to save a penny on a $20k car, and fuel efficiency isn't necessarily cheap
4) Automakers employ lots of smart people, but there might be someone smarter out there with the balls and the brains to make something innovative
5) Automakers could make a 100 mpg car that could win the race, but no-one would buy it because they'd have to charge too much money for it.
6) Automakers R+D things, sure, but automakers also rely heavily on vendors for the latest gizmo to do X for $Y. The group that comes up with some innovation to win this race might be just what automakers need.
7) Automakers are trying to SURVIVE, thus year after year mostly just do what they are required to do by law and what will sell well enough to satisfy the shareholders.

Speed is not what's dangerous....

[Anonymous Coward]

The Government, well ours in the UK anyway, have been doing a great job trying to make people think that speed is somehow inherently dangerous. Heads up folks ... it isn't!

That's right. Speed, in and of itself, is not what's dangerous. Crashing at high speed is what's dangerous!

Soooooo, just don't ever crash! ;-)

just make it ligher, like twingo smile

[mnbjhguyt]

Greenpeace did almost 70mpg in 1996 with simple mods to an existing car

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmILE

Not sure this will work...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since switching to diesel powered cars I've found three things.
1. Very good MPG (40-50mpg in a BMW 330d on a motorway run)
2. Great overtaking ability when needed, torque is your friend
3. Relaxed cruising. Engine is doing 2500 rpm, again torque helps keep a high gear

Weight seems to be one huge factor. Our cars now have so many gizmos they are much heavier than previous generations.
Another is traffic volumes. Try getting anywhere near 40mpg in stop start traffic in the Beemer and it's much more difficult.
Even the new Blue Motion VW's are not hitting the advertised MPG when tested on a TV program during a month of normal use.

Technicallities?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think technicallities are going to be a big issue in this competition. For example, it appears electric cars are eligible (article mentions Tesla motors is entering), but obviously electricity isn't directly equitable. Tesla already claims their Roadster (a 2 seater, so not eligible for this x-prize) gets something like 125 mpg equivalent, but that depends on assumptions made about your electrical source versus the efficiency of an internal combustion engine.

A simpler consideration is different fuels. Are diesel and gasoline fueled cars treated equally, despite their fuel's different energy content? Also, readiness for mass-production is listed as a judging criteria. How is that judged? If you have one competitor with a well-developed supply chain but not all of their manufacturing tooling, are the ahead of or behind a competitor that has all of their manufacturing tooling but a supply chain in disarray?

to win

[Anonymous Coward]

1) order a selection of Japanese and European cars
2) put them into competition
3) ?????
4) PROFIT!

Alternatives

[bamwham]

I have solutions already in place:

I have a 15 mile rt commute to work, with another 15 for errands on the weekend, gives me 90 miles a week. My current car (Toyota Corolla) gets 30+ miles per gallon. If I ride my bike to work 4.2 days per week (right now I do 5 days a week but I guess I could cut back). I can get my gasoline usage down the equivalent of a 100 mpg car.

or if you rather, if I move to 1.2 miles from work (a bit pricey as I work on a college campus, but not undoable) I could get my gasoline usage down the equivalent of a 100 mph car. By combining bike and car usage I can dial things to somewhere in between.

X-prize foundation, I'd like my 10 million in small bills, you only need to give me the award once, thanks!

Re:Alternatives

[ShadowsHawk]

I realize that you're being pedantic, but biking is not feasible for the majority of the population. Personally, I can't bike 30+ miles each way in a foot of snow. As for moving closer, I'll get right on that as soon as the market picks up and they double my salary.

Re:Alternatives

[bamwham]

biking is not feasible for the majority of the population I hope I'm wrong, but when gas is 10$/ga. and 100 mpg cars are still a pipe dream I would expect this to change. Personally I'm trying my best to set my life (home, work, spouse's work) up so that I'm not reliant on some fancy new (read expensive) technology when a 100 year old technology can solve the same problem now.

Re:Alternatives

[cylcyl]

Then ride mass transit
If you don't live near one. Move.
If there is none serving your area, talk to your reps to build one instead of roads and bridges to nowhere.
US has been dismantling mass transit system for roads for 70+ years because gasoline is so cheap, now we're paying the price

Re:Alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

you can't drive 30 miles in a foot of snow either (well not in any reasonable time)

Maybe I'm blind...

[KillerBob]

But what's the point of having an article about an X-Prize if they don't actually say what target the car has to meet?

Case in point... my car is a 2007 Chevrolet Aveo... Not only does it meet every requirement that's actually listed in TFA, it beats them. It's classed as a LEV, and I know from experience that it pulls 40mpg at 100mph (Filled up in Vaudreiul, QC, topped off the tank an hour later in Ottawa, ON, it took 10L, total distance is just over 159km), making it far more efficient than most (non-hybrid, gasoline) cars on the market. I doubt, however, that this is in the league they're looking for.

Seriously... am I blind, or did they seriously write an article about an X-Prize for fuel efficiency without saying, anywhere in the article, what the target efficiency is?

Re:Maybe I'm blind...

[gnasher719]

Case in point... my car is a 2007 Chevrolet Aveo... Not only does it meet every requirement that's actually listed in TFA, it beats them. It's classed as a LEV, and I know from experience that it pulls 40mpg at 100mph (Filled up in Vaudreiul, QC, topped off the tank an hour later in Ottawa, ON, it took 10L, total distance is just over 159km), making it far more efficient than most (non-hybrid, gasoline) cars on the market. I doubt, however, that this is in the league they're looking for. Ten liters for 159 km? I make that 30 miles per UK gallon, or 25 miles per US gallon.

Fuel Efficient Cars Need to Made Efficiently

[TexasGuitar]

I am willing to bet the cost it takes to build such a car would offset the cost of the prize. The problem with all new car ideas is the amount of resources it takes to develop a new concept. In the meantime our atmosphere and fossil fuels will get worse and worse. What we should do is start sharing our existing resources. For cars that means we should carpool. You save gas, save money and save the environment. I use: http://www.ridesearch.com/RideSearch.com to find someone to carpool with. That can happen right away and it doesn't require millions of dollars and a prize to do it.

Doable with an electric car.

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like they provide electricity as fuel. 100 MPG is 20.3 Kwh/100 km. Available electric cars (around 1 ton) consume about 15Kwh/100km. So you have some margin for more weight and charging losses.
Here's how to do it. Take a normal light car which fits the requirements. Add good batteries(like lipo or zebra) until you get to the desired range. Take an electric motor to get to the needed acceleration/speed. If you get the weight below 1.3 tons your efficiency wil be below 20Kwh/100km and you meet all requirements.
Investment around $100K. Profit $9.9M. Damn I should look for a sponsor.

Federal saftey regs to be met?

[Iowan41]

They are a chief cause in the reduction of mileage in high-mileage vehicles over the last 20 years. Make the x prize meet the federal safety and emissions guidelines, which are the chief hindrances to fuel economy. And make the range a much more reasonable 500 miles between refuelings. No one wants to have to fill the tank every three hours.

Huh?

[Orig_Club_Soda]

When and where is it necessary - or allowed - to drive 100 mph? 80 mph is top.

Fuel Used, then Speed

[StCredZero]

Make the criteria like this:

1) You have to complete the race within a certain time. (72 hours is quite reasonable for across the United States.)
2) Least fuel used wins, rounded to an arbitrary unit. (cc)
3) If two teams tie for fuel consumption, then the team that completed the trip first wins.

This motivates the teams to complete the trip in exactly 71 hours, 59 minutes, and we still get a bit of strategic jockeying at the end for "first."

American realistic specs

[Anonymous Coward]

I would love to get 100 MPG, but why do they require acceleration to 60 in 12 seconds? 15-20 seconds would be just fine. And more importantly, why do they require a minimum top speed of 100 MPH? 80 MPH would be more than sufficient for 99.99% of roads worldwide.

You're obviously not an American. (hawk, spit)

[/humour]

Nothing will change.

[WilyCoder]

Sorry to be an evil bastard but this car won't change anything (at least from a financial standpoint).

Build an ultra efficient car? Then raise the gas prices so the oil companies get the same amount of money.

Environmentally, this car would be awesome.

1992 Honda Prelude

[Thurmont]

That's nothing. Since there's no MPG mentioned, my 16 year old Prelude covers all the requirements listed above. Do I win?

range problem solved

[zogger]

Ac Propulsion, who also make electric cars and components (they are supplying a lot of other manufacturers and do-it-your-selfers now), came up with the rigidly attached generator trailer idea, the modular hybrid approach- rigid as in no flexing, the trailer axle stays inline with the cars rear axle, it tracks, easy for noobs to back up with then-that turns a pure electric car into a modular hybrid. Around town short distance, electric only, long trips, attach the trailer and away you go, stop and fillerup as you would normally. Their model sportscar still fits within a normal parking space *with* the generator trailer attached.

And that is really the way to do hybrids, cramming all that stuff, the ICE, the electric motor, the gas tank, and the batteries, inside one car is nuts, an overly complicated cobjob, you got two of everything-drive train system and "stored power"- when you really only need one.

Gasoline?

[Lank]

While this is great, the problem still remains that the Earth is running out of fossil fuels. This guy thinks the Earth will be bone-dry within 10 years. That may be a little dramatic, I don't know. However, one thing is certain: this planet has already crossed its peak oil production levels - from here on out, we're on the decline. What does that mean? Well, assuming you don't buy the whole, "The Earth is running out of oil!" argument (you should) it means that less is being produced every year and, therefore, the price is going up.

My question is this: why are they still using gasoline? Even the most conservative estimates give us 50 years at most. A 100-MPG car will only be a stop-gap solution, and it will be years before production can ramp up and start cranking these vehicles out. We need to be investing in alternate forms of fuel, not a 100-MPG car!

Re:Gasoline?

[agent_no.82]

It's Miles-Per-Gasoline-equivalent. It's just rated in MPGe to keep teams using alternate fuels from claiming to have absurd MPG, and also giving a measure that is common and understandable to most people.

Mathematical conundrum

[Whiteox]

From the Xprize website:

The $10 million prize purse will be split 3:1 between the winners of the Mainstream and Alternative classes. Final guidelines will be published shortly. Now if you divide 3 into 10 million, you're going to get a repeating decimal cent....
How are they going to pay that?

Less Sexy

[dontmakemethink]

The big problem with the trailer idea is that when you need the extra distance or power, the last thing you'll want is a trailer's weight and aerodynamic drag. The whole point of hybrids is to have a relatively high-output engine recharge a low-output electric system *for light-duty usage*, offering the same range and refueling options as any regular gas vehicle. A diesel car will beat any hybrid in a long-distance race, and will undoubtedly win this X-Prize.

While hybrids are efficient and have very low emmissions for city driving, under load they are worse than diesels in every regard. If the contestant's cars have to be street-legal, a hybrid might use marginally less fuel to complete the race, but a diesel will definitely get there faster.

Hybrids have two motors, one electric, the other typically gas, plus a big heavy power cell, plus a big alternator to charge the power cell. The two motors typically have less combined horsepower than their gas equivalents, and much less torque. So accelleration is poor and not very efficient, and at highway speeds generally the electric motor is only barely enough, so the gas motor is more frequently engaging to recharge the power cell and supplement the power when cimbing/passing. It's only when cruising at 20-40mph that the efficiency of a hybrid is truely remarkable.

But whenever the electric motor's output is exceeded for a long period of time, the relatively small gas engine has to take over. In order for a hybrid to have the necessary power to compete with a diesel, the motors and power cells will weigh more than the entire diesel car. So in a race, the hybrid loses every time.

Hybrids are great for city drivers, but diesels have many applications which are being ignored and aren't served well by hybrids. And for under $1000 you can put together a rig to filter waste vegetable oil for use in an unmodified diesel vehicle. That's even better for the environment than biodiesel because it's a recycled product and no chemicals are necessary to prepare it, where biodiesel requires enough lye and methanol that it competes with petro diesel for environmental damage. Just run the waste oil through a centrifuge filter (removes water and particulate down to under 0.5 microns, including glycerin). It's even possible to clean the oil on the road using the engine's power to heat and pump the oil through the centrifuge. Waste veg oil cleaning waste veg oil, in transit.

Let's face it, hybrids are sexy, diesels aren't. But just watch which engine type wins this prize.

Nice fuel-efficient car, but...

[RealGrouchy]

Where will you park it?

It's one thing to reduce emissions, but quite another to reduce traffic congestion.

- RG>

Loremo anyone?

[daybyter]

Sounds like the prize was made for the Loremo...

http://evolution.loremo.com/index.php?lang=en

my ideas

[scharkalvin]

Hybrid autos get good mileage because they recycle wasted energy with regenerative brakes and such.
But they directly drive the wheels with the engine which must run a varying speed.

So my idea to build a high mileage car would be to start with a fully electric drive system. Place
one electric motor at each wheel. This will give you a four wheel drive system with electric
differential. Directly couple an alternator to the output of the engine. The alternator will drive
the electrical system, recharging the batteries. The engine only runs when required, to charge the
batteries and to supply excess power when required. The engine runs at a constant speed (but not at
a constant throttle setting, the throttle varies to keep the engine / alternator running at a constant
speed under varying loads). This drive system is the same as on all current diesel locomotives.
The engine would be a multi-fuel design. Perhaps with two sets of cylinders, one for otto cycle combustion
(gas, ethenol, etc) and another set for diesel (diesel fuel, jet-A, used McDonolds fry oil).

All exposed surfaces of the car are covered with solar panels. When the
car is parked there are internal panels that can be placed behind the windows with velcro to keep the
sun out of the car, and these are also solar panels. So the batteries are passively re-charged when
the car is parked (in the sun).

I have but one requirement...

[nullkill]

the car must hit 88 mph.