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

[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

[OnlineAlias]

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

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

[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

[Bruiser80]

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

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?

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

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?

[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: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.

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: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.

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??

[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.

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

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: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.

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: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?

Draft Guidelines

[ryanguill]

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

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: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?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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: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.

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.

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.

Re:100 MPH?

[FatAlb3rt]

That was Montana from 1995-1999.

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.

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.

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: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: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).