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.'"

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?

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.

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: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: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.

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: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: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?

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: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.

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.

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: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.

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:More practical than other X prizes

[Sensible Clod]

The Audi A2 [wikipedia.org] 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: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: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: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.