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Race for 100mpg Car has $10 Million Dollar Prize

by Emil "Swede" Nyberg

Now this I would like to see. Hope its made in the USA

From The Sunday Times January 13, 2008

The first 100mpg car – now that’s a concept with legs
With oil prices predicted to hit $200 a barrel by 2010, a competition is under way to design an affordable family car that offers the magical 100 miles to the gallon, says Emma Smith.

An international competition with a $10m (£5m) prize is drawing innovators from around the world who believe they can create a viable ultra-high-mileage, low-emissions vehicle to combat the dual perils of soaring oil prices and global warming.

The Automotive X Prize, or AXP, has already attracted about 50 entries – including two from Britain – although the competition, along with the names of its wealthy backers, will not be formally announced until March.

The teams will then have a year to prepare for the first-round heats, in which they will have to prove their vehicles can exceed 75mpg. The following year, the competitors will battle it out in a final, 10-stage showdown in cities across the United States, with spectators able to watch on a live web link. In the finals, the cars will have to achieve at least 100mpg consistently – less than a third of the 32mpg average fuel consumption of all cars on UK roads.

The competition is being launched against the backdrop of $100-a-barrel crude oil and, for motorists in Britain, the prospect of fuel soon costing 110p a litre, or £5 per gallon.

The company competing for the main prize must provide an affordable, safe, four-seat family car with the potential to appeal to ordinary buyers and a business plan to produce 10,000 a year. The team that meets the criteria and clocks up the best time across all 10 races will win the prize.

“We don’t want science projects, laboratory experiments or exclusive high-end products that most of us can’t buy,” says Don Foley, executive director of the AXP. “We don’t want vehicles that just look nice on the covers of magazines. We want super-efficient cars that people will want to go out and buy, right now.”

The AXP is the latest initiative from the X Prize Foundation, founded by Dr Peter Diamandis, an expert in commercial space travel, in the United States in 1996 with the mission to stimulate “revolution through competition”. It was inspired by the amateur aviation competitions of the 1920s, which captured the public imagination and encouraged the development of commercial air travel. The first prize, the Ansari X Prize, was awarded in 2004 to Burt Rutan, an aerospace engineer financed by Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft.

Together they became the first team to build and launch twice in two weeks a spacecraft capable of carrying three people to more than 60 miles above the Earth’s surface. Rutan is now working with Sir Richard Branson, the Virgin boss, to pioneer space tourism.

There are X Prizes under way in the fields of lunar exploration and genomics, but the AXP is tackling more pressing concerns – environmental sustainability and affordable transport for the foreseeable future. The latest predictions suggest oil prices could double to $200 a barrel by 2010.

While average fuel economy for British cars is 31mpg for petrol cars and 39mpg for diesel (with the overall average of 32mpg), the average fuel economy of cars in the US is just 20.2mpg. Diamandis is keen to point out that even the Model T Ford managed 25mpg. “If we do this right, we’re going to draw a large line in the sand and say all cars we drove before this date are relegated to the history museums,” he claims.

Among the competitors will be Dragonfly Technology of Northampton, founded by Dr John Davis, an aerodynamics specialist who has worked with Formula One teams from Lotus to Williams. He plans to produce a super-efficient petrol-engined car using technology pioneered in F1.

“We’re looking at a practical petrol car, not a bubble car or anything stupid,” Davis says. “Our entry uses the principles of hybrid cars, such as regenerative braking, but instead of using electronics to store energy in a battery, which is really not very efficient, this system is entirely mechanical and works by storing energy in the flywheel.”

The car will have a predicted fuel economy in excess of 100mpg, with the possibility of going beyond that, and emissions of less than 120g/km. The competition is not restricted to cars with internal combustion engines. The only stipulation is that the fuel must be available to the car-buying public, which rules out hydrogen.

At the Auto Expo in Delhi last week the MDI company of Luxembourg unveiled a car that can run on compressed air, which it plans to enter for the AXP. MDI also claims to have signed a development contract with Tata, India’s largest car company.

Hybrid, plug-in hybrid or all-electric vehicles will also be among the entries to the competition. For electric vehicles, the same 100mpg rule applies, but it is converted into a standard number of units of energy a car consumes per mile.

Delta Motorsport, based near the Silverstone grand prix circuit in Northamptonshire, is working on an all-electric four-seater under the working name of Ulev, standing for ultra low emissions vehicle. Delta, established three years ago and more accustomed to making high-powered cars for race series, says its electric car will do 0-60mph in 6.5sec and has a top speed of 110mph and a range of up to 300 miles, thanks to a light monocoque chassis made of a carbon composite and its aerodynamic shape.

It easily exceeds the 100mpg-equivalent target in mixed motoring, and if customers were prepared to accept a reduced range – about 180 miles – it could be increased to the equivalent of almost 400mpg. It uses lithium-phosphate batteries, a type of lithium-ion battery of the sort used in mobile phones, but less prone to overheating and with a longer life. The company plans to sell the cars for £20,000-£25,000.

“This is something we were looking at even before we stumbled upon the X Prize and realised all its criteria fitted in with our ambitions for the Ulev,” says Nick Carpenter, co-director of the business.

According to AXP rules, the cars, as well as topping 100mpg, must emit no more than 200g/km of CO2 which may not sound ambitious, especially when you think that the average new car on sale in Britain today releases 165g/km. But Foley believes this would still be a step forward in the American market, where big is beautiful and a Mercedes-Benz E-class, with urban fuel economy of 23mpg (based on US figures), is considered a low-emissions vehicle. And for the purposes of the AXP, 200g/km is calculated as a “well-to-wheel” figure. So, whereas you might argue that some electric vehicles offer zero-emissions motoring, by the terms of the AXP you would also have to factor in the source of their electricity – usually dirty old fossil fuels.

Based on these calculations, an all-electric vehicle needs to achieve the equivalent of 133mpg to pass the AXP emissions test. Tesla’s Roadster, a 130mph electric sports car that goes on sale in the US this year, doesn’t qualify. Plus it’s only a two-seater. Instead, the company plans to enter the WhiteStar, a sporty four-door saloon with a predicted retail price of £25,000 – half the cost of its Roadster.

The California-based Aptera company has an almost production-ready vehicle that it plans to enter for the “alternative class” of the AXP. In this class, competitors are freed from many of the restrictions of the “mainstream” competition, so Aptera’s three-wheel two-seater, the Typ-1, qualifies. This freakish contraption – the product of allowing function to dictate form, according to its makers – has a 50kW motor and a 120-mile range and will go on sale in the US this year, priced £13,000-£15,000.

Britain’s drivers travel a combined total distance of 247 billion miles a year (based on government data for 2005, the most recent figures available) and cars account for 11.7% of the nation’s CO2 emissions. Although mainstream car companies are making improvements in fuel economy and reducing emissions – by incorporating hybrid technology or regenerative braking, by improving engine efficiency or by stripping weight – the big firms are notably absent from the AXP’s list of entrants.

“We’ve been talking to all of them and we would encourage them to come forward and take on these lesser-known competitors,” Foley says. “We want them to show the world what they’ve got. None of the major car makers has said this is an impossible task. We are quite satisfied this is a goal we can achieve. Now it’s time for car buyers to pay attention.”

Economy Drives

After years of pumping up speed, power and body weight, car companies, spurred on by tax penalties, relentlessly rising fuel prices and the threat of new legislation, are vying to produce the leanest, meanest machines.

Models such as the Volkswagen Polo BlueMotion trumpet their mpg rather than their bhp. The Polo BlueMotion shares its status as the most frugal new car in the UK with the Seat Ibiza Ecomotive, which was launched just before Christmas and will be in showrooms in April. Both offer 74.3mpg in mixed motoring and emissions of 99g/km. CO2 Meanwhile, the petrol-electric Toyota Prius claims 65.7mpg and CO2 emissions of 104g/km, narrowly beating the Honda Civic Hybrid’s 61.4mpg and 109g/km.

Even high-end German manufacturers, including Porsche and BMW, are looking at hybrid models. Porsche plans to sell the Cayenne 4×4 hybrid from 2010 and BMW unveiled the X6 hybrid concept car in September.

The tiny, all-electric Reva G-Wiz offers even cheaper and greener motoring, claiming to emit the equivalent of 63g/km of CO2 if the car is ultimately charged from a conventional oil/gas power station. But it has a top speed of 50mph and a range of no more than 48 miles between lengthy recharges.

For a more effective electric car from a mainstream name, you may have to wait for the arrival of models such as the Chevrolet Volt, an electric car with a back-up petrol engine, scheduled to go into production in 2010.

In the meantime, among the more fuel-efficient cars on the market are the Toyota Aygo, Citroën C1 and Peugeot 107, all with the same petrol or diesel engines, emitting 109g/km and offering 51.4mpg or 53.3mpg, for petrol and diesel respectively.

Jan 13, 07:43 pm | Emil "Swede" Nyberg
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15 comments on this article (post your own)

1 On Jan 13, 09:26 pm, carmel wrote:

Wouldn’t it be nice if this were achieved under normal driving circumstances rather than where the test vehicle coasts half the time and never goes over ten miles an hour! Wouldn’t also be nice if the mpg raings claimed on the cars we buy in the US actually got that milage instead of the rating being in “relative” numbers. I’ve always thought Detroit gets away with false advertising.

2 On Jan 14, 12:58 pm, Uncle Walt wrote:

It is a virtual impossibility for a car that gets 100 mpg, uses readily available fuel, and is affordable, to be made in the United States.

And it has nothing to do with oil companies.

It’s because of all the gov’t safety regulations.

Look at MDI company, the one actually manufacturing those “air engine cars”. Why don’t they have a factory, or at least a dealership, in the United States? Because their cars can’t meet our safety requirements. If you ask me, THAT is what is really keeping affordable alternate fuel vehicles from being developed and sold here.

The irony, of course, is that (generally) the same people who want alternative vehicles – are the same people who want the nanny state to regulate our lives “in the name of safety”. It now appears that safety is bad for the environment.

3 On Jan 14, 04:40 pm, I need some KY Im tired of being dry humped wrote:

Uncle Walt you could have not said that any better

4 On Jan 14, 07:32 pm, Californication wrote:

How then do you account for the people who think it’s necessary to buy a tank-sized SUV in the name of safety? They’re also the same people who want more powerful vehicles and optional 4×4 capability for the one or two days a year where they might need it. I don’t imagine they’re the same people who are calling for alternative fuel vehicles, until the price of fuel for their giant vehicles gets to be too much for them. I’m not sure it’s the same group of people at all.

Me, I’m happy to see the price of gasoline going up. It seems to be the only thing driving the exploration for alternative energy sources for cars. Not environmental concerns, not global warming, not consumption of resources, not the political ramifications of global competition for crude oil.

5 On Jan 15, 06:52 am, Uncle Walt wrote:

Californication – you’re missing something.

Those people who buy SUVs in the name of safety, aren’t asking the gov’t to keep them safe. They’re using their own resources, by buying a large vehicle, to try and keep themselves safer on the road.

On the other hand, people who say SUVs are too big and pose a danger to people in smaller cars are asking the gov’t to keep them safe (by outlawing large SUVs).

6 On Jan 16, 06:35 pm, Californication wrote:

It’s really a silly argument. You say, “to try and keep themselves safer on the road” Well, large SUVs aren’t inherently safer than smaller vehicles—they just trade one form of safety for another. They’re more likely to be involved in roll-overs due to their greater mass and higher center of gravity. They’re heavier and take longer to stop than smaller cars so they are involved in more collisions which a smaller vehicle could avoid. Their visibility to the side and back is more restricted so they’re more likely to be involved in a crash because of that.

58% of all fatal crashes involve only a single vehicle.
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

I’d say air bags, seat belts and things like crumple zones have done a good job of making all vehicles safer. They’re all examples of the government keeping us safer and I’m grateful for it.

I don’t think I’ve heard anyone asking the gov’t to outlaw large SUVs. I do think penalizing those who buy them in some way is a good idea. They (large SUVs) deplete more natural resources, contribute more to pollution and are more likely to kill or injure other people. In any case, five or six dollar per gallon gas will probably do them in.

7 On Jan 16, 08:45 pm, uncle walt wrote:

“They’re heavier and take longer to stop than smaller cars so they are involved in more collisions which a smaller vehicle could avoid.”

See? These alternative fuel vehicles, because they’re smaller and don’t go as fast, shouldn’t need to meet the gov’t safety regulations bigger vehicles do. Because they can avoid collisions.

8 On Jan 16, 09:39 pm, Californication wrote:

I knew we’d find a way to get them approved. ;-)

9 On Jan 16, 09:44 pm, I need some KY Im tired of being dry humped wrote:

Should Government restrict our rights to own guns, our rights to free speech, force us to pay for someone elses health insurance, take things from us on the behalf of the common good. Should our Government ration our liberties? From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his needs, is this what you are advocating for? I heard they are also making it illegal to own knives with sharp pointy ends in England, because they are to dangerous, what about those framing hammers, they can really cause some serious trauma also. You better file down them sharp ends of all those nails they could poke ya! I always seem to notice that people that advocate for such policies are usually pretty well off or the policies just will not directly impact there daily lives; “the hell with the rest of ya!”

10 On Jan 16, 10:38 pm, Californication wrote:

I’m not quite sure what you’re on about, KY. I’m OK with restricting things that negatively impact other people. We have the right of free speech, but that doesn’t give one a right to blare a stereo at high volume and disturb a neighbor’s peaceful enjoyment of their property. Nor does freedom of speech give one the right to publicly defame someone or to spread lies about their character. None of our rights are absolute. Felons and the mentally ill aren’t allowed to own guns.

I don’t know why spewing toxins into the air should be any different than littering or other laws and regulations which protect the planet we live on. Surely you wouldn’t argue that you have a right to dump your garbage anywhere you want to, would you? We don’t allow ships and boats to foul our waters with waste and pollution. What’s so different about the air we all have to breathe? I’d like the liberty to breathe clean air and not see so many of the world’s resources used to build large, pointless vehicles.

11 On Jan 17, 07:05 am, Uncle Walt wrote:

KY – you should read my post about whether you’re an outlaw or an elite. It’s on unclewaltsrants.blogspot.org

12 On Jan 17, 03:52 pm, I need some KY Im tired of being dry humped wrote:

No where did I write anything about pollution, only about Government having to much control over our daily lives. To Uncle Walt,, I have know idea if im considered an outlaw or an elite, I do know Im an individual, I will check out your blog.

13 On Feb 8, 09:06 am, SHERI GRIZZELL-SCOTT wrote:

This is NOT the first 100 mpg car!!! The real problem is that General Motors etc. has bought out all of the gas efficient carb’s from individuals that are just like you and me. These people have invented carburetors that get 200 mpg and General Motors contacts them, offers a hefty payoff to all rights and then keeps the design, while we pay the high gas prices. That is what the problem is. It is all about greed and money to these larger companies and the working people of America are paying the price. No one looks into it too much because they come up missing. It really is a problem that people need to rally together to stop. Refusing to buy cars that get less than 200 mpg is possible and would create positive changes. Let’s start talking, thinking and doing like Martin Luther King. He had a dream and we should all have a dream to be treated fairly. Type in 200 mpg carburetors in your google search browser and look into this. It is not a myth.

Investigations on those who have created these fuel efficient carburetors or who have put up a fight against the large companies (oil companies and general motors etc.)and have mysteriously died or come up missing should be widely publicized, but yet they never make it on the news at all, ironic.

” The Water Fuel Cell” by Stanley Meyer. Pub 1991. — It has been said he ran a VW dune buggy on water only. He tried for years to get financial help; but when he finally got it, he died mysteriously while celebrating the deal. A newspaper stated “His car and information were seized with no one explaining how he did it.” This is his original information and articles on his system, — 2 books over 180 pages. $30.00

The environment is very important and environmental friendly, safe & also affordable inventions do exist. So long as the oil companies don’t keep adding additional additives to create counter effects to those trying to make a positive difference.

“Secret Super Mileage Report” by Bruce McBurney, Pub. 1996. — The facts on special carburetors and how they produced natural gas and methanol for greatly increased gas mileage–up to five times, and how they drastically cut pollution. If you care about clean air and a healthy planet for your children, you need to know and share this information. This book explains how any of the pioneers in this movement set the stage for the new developments in this field. However, they didn’t understand that the chemistry of the reaction or how the additives in gas prevented the systems from working. This book comes with a money back guarantee if you are not convinced.Over 1600 copies sold (with only 2 refunds). A must read for any researcher, environmentalist, or skeptic. — 68 pages. $19.95.

Please check out the website provided above, by clicking on my name. This is where I got the articles above. The website gives information and tells just a few of the true stories behind fuel efficient carburetors and also those inventors who have been coerced into “selling out” or hiding for fear of disappearing. Many other websites are included within these stories as well. Lets get the word out.

14 On Feb 8, 09:10 am, SHERI GRIZZELL-SCOTT wrote:

The website to refer to above is provided when you click on my name, located at the top of the comment. Thank you, Sheri

15 On Mar 20, 11:10 am, TONI E. LYNCH wrote:

any one interested in my theory for the 100 plus mpg car can contact me and i will gladly assist, i would ask for a share interest in the reward incentive.

Toni E. Lynch

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