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29 fuel-efficient cars face first big test
The 100-mile-per-gallon, real-world car has long been the stuff of science fiction, cartoons and comic books – but no more. Its day in the sun is coming, and fast.
Cars that can travel 100 miles per gallon on gasoline (or the equivalent thereof using other fuels and power sources) are not only possible but are being built now.
On Monday, 29 teams from around the world — including as many as three from Canada — will gather at Michigan International Speedway near Jackson to compete for $10 million in cash prizes in the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize.
Their goal is not only to achieve 100 miles per U.S. gallon (120 mpg per Imperial gallon, or 2.35 litres per 100 km), but also to do so in safety, comfort and at credible, real-world speeds.
Desirability is another factor: they have to be cars that appeal and that people will want to buy.
The privateer teams, which rely on private sector funding to compete, typically are comprised of engineers, scientists, businesspeople, designers, electricians and others who want to see the automobile advance in terms of efficiency and emissions.
Last fall, the Auto X Prize foundation culled the initial 111-team entries to 43 and gave them until April 26 to develop/fine-tune their creations before a week of shakedown testing at the Michigan speedway.
X Prize engineers reviewed team blueprints and proposals and judged the potential safety, manufacturability, and economy of the designs. If a proposed vehicle was off the mark in any one area, it was disqualified.
As of Wednesday, only 29 teams remained in the competition, as listed on the X Prize press room website.
Among those cut was Veperformance of Quebec City and its fully-electric Chevrolet Camaro conversion, the only Canadian team to make it into the Mainstream class. Competition organizers faulted Veperformance for sending crucial information to the judges after deadlines had passed, said team leader Eric Nadeu.
Twenty of the finalist teams comprise the only other class, Alternative – two-seaters with less restrictive rules. This class includes the other three Canadian teams: FVT Racing of Maple Ridge, B.C., OptaMotive of Stittsville, Ont., near Ottawa, and Urbee of Winnipeg.
But Team Urbee is likely to be a no-show in Michigan, according to team electrician John Vukelic.
The ragtag team of automotive innovators faces two major issues: they don’t have a body on the plug-in electric car with a tiny ethanol-powered backup engine; they developed the chassis “just in time to meet the judges,” and they don’t have adequate insurance coverage for the test.
Of the remaining two Canadian entries, both have well-developed, sorted and proven entries and look to be strong contenders.
OptaMotive clearly has the high-efficiency sports-car market in mind with its three-wheeled E-Rex, an all-electric version of the high performing, gas-powered T-Rex built by Campagna Motors of Boucherville, Que., as well as its strategic approach to the competition.
For OptaMotive, speed over fuel efficiency is the top priority.
“We’re okay with someone else being more efficient (and collecting the prize money), as long was we get there first,” said Mark Demers, team leader.
“We want to be the fastest, yet we’ll still be highly-efficient.”
OptaMotive’s goal is to tap the potentially larger sums that could come from investors if the team puts on a strong showing. “The aim is to build credibility, so we don’t want to be at the bottom of that list,” he said in a telephone interview.
The fourth-generation, all-electric eVaro is a tandem two-seater entered by FVT (for Future Vehicle Technologies) Racing. The newest eVaro has a lighter, more powerful generator and should do better than the 275-mpg (equivalent) achieved by the third-generation car.
“We’re going to take a swing at 300 mpg (equivalent).”
Like OptaMotive, FVT Racing sees the X Prize as a springboard to private-sector investment that would allow the research and development company to ramp up production and seek licensing agreements with manufacturers.
The shakedown meeting will not be judged; teams will have the opportunity to test and present their cars to the judging team without fear of being eliminated. They will then have six weeks to further refine their cars before the first knockout round at MIS June 20-28.
Acceleration, handling and braking performance will all be judged at this time and teams will be required to meet targets for range, emissions and real-world performance, including a hill-climb test.
Those who make it through will return to the speedway on July 19 where, after driving and inspection, the cars will undergo aerodynamic efficiency and rolling resistance tests.
Having sifted through reams of data and using an algorithm that weights fuel economy, production feasibility, cost and other factors, the winners for each class will be determined and announced in September.
American company Progressive Insurance put up the prize money to encourage the next generation of high-mileage, super-efficient automobiles.
The California-based X PRIZE Foundation is an educational nonprofit organization whose mission, while working with the private sector, is to create “radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity, thereby inspiring the formation of new industries, jobs and the revitalization of markets that are currently stuck.”
In 2004, the Foundation awarded the largest prize in history to that date, the $10 million Ansari X Prize, in an effort to encourage private, manned space flight. Other X Prize competitions have been announced for genomics (the study of genomes in organisms, including DNA sequencing and mapping), and the Google Lunar X Prize, a $30 million competition for the first privately-funded team to send a robot to the moon, travel 500 meters across its surface and transmit video images and data back to Earth.
Other competitions — the Foundation’s motto is Revolution Through Competition — are being planned in the fields of energy and environment, exploration, education, global development and life sciences.
The qualifying race winners in the Mainstream and Alternative classes will split the cash prize, with the winning Mainstream team getting 75 per cent of the pot and the top Alternative team the remaining 25 per cent.
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