Progressive Automotive X PRIZE

WIKISPEED Uses Business Experience to Make Personal Passion a Reality

WIKISPEED team leader, Joe Justice, found a way to merge his work and personal passion in order to follow a vision that he has for creating safe, energy efficient vehicles. As a business consultant in Lean engineering and Agile project management, Joe visits businesses to help them reduce waste in their daily work. He has consulted for the oil industry, the health care industry, state and federal government, and currently consults at the largest non-profit foundation in the world.

“I am fascinated by those rare design principles that improve productivity and reduce effort or simplify processes,” says Joe. “To find them, I’ve studied animal tracking, martial arts, human factors/usability, Lean manufacturing/value-stream mapping, Agile project management, and the evolution of automotive design. It is amazing how many old-thought designs are in common use, when there are enormously more efficient well-known methods solving similar problems right next door.”

Pursuing his passion, in 2006 Joe was tuning production cars for speed. Like many car enthusiasts, he realized that by reducing the weight of the car, he not only improved acceleration and handling, but he improved fuel economy as well. Joe began reducing vehicle weight aggressively, and ultimately abandoned production car frames to create something much lighter. Furthering his commitment to this pursuit, Joe studied road legal requirements, founded a certified automotive manufacturing business and focused on reducing the weight of his vehicle while retaining the safety standards and other requirements for road legal use.

At this same time, Joe became involved in Lean engineering and Agile project management, which reduced the cost and complexity of his designs and reduced the cost of partnering with vendors. In 2008, with the announcement of the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE, Joe formed WIKISPEED, which is comprised of a team of volunteers and vendors who are committed to creating100 MPGe vehicles.

To build his team, Joe solicited experts in automotive tuning, project management, materials engineering, automotive manufacturing, automotive design, automotive safety, racing, and even philosophy. When he is not able to find a volunteer with a specific expertise, he calculates the expense to either hire someone at a respectable industry rate or train a team volunteer to a valuable skilled level. As a result, WIKISPEED is comprised of a changing mix of contractors and volunteers.

One of the greatest challenges that WIKISPEED has experienced during the competition involves balancing its collaborative and vehicle development philosophies with the confidentiality required to compete in the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE.

Before the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE every part of WIKISPEED’s designs were publicly discussed,” says Joe. “This let us gather feedback from a very wide community and provided a visible timeline of where we were investing our resources. The competitive nature of the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE has meant we have had to keep some innovations to ourselves, which hurts our ability to collaborate with other people, which is a form of the ‘waste’ I’ve been talking about reducing. Ideally, we could collaborate openly and equitably share rights to innovations.”

In addition to producing a vehicle for the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE, team members of WIKISPEED have a history of innovation. Members have previously innovated composite 3d printing methods and prototyped simplified robotic bipedal walking systems. Currently, in relation to their vehicle, they are developing a minimum cost, modular road legal vehicle.  Simultaneously, they are also researching vaccine deployments in developing countries and remote zero-environmental-footprint medical centers.

No Looking Back for SABA Motors

No matter what the outcome of the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE, SABA Motors’ team leader, Simon Saba, will have no regrets.  Although he does not have a background in automotive, he knew that the time was now to take advantage of an opportunity that he believes will never come again.

Simon, a mechanical engineer, who works in the field of lasers and fiber optics technology, followed his entrepreneurial spirit when he heard about the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE.  Understanding the technical and financial challenges of the competition, he nevertheless jumped in and has not looked back.

Says Simon, “What really made me decide to enter was that I didn’t want to be 65 and think ‘coulda, woulda, shoulda’.  I didn’t want any regrets of not entering.  I don’t mind not winning, but I didn’t want to regret not entering.”

Simon believes that now is the perfect time for automotive innovation and the rise of challengers to the major OEMs.  He holds that the new emphasis on green technology, moving away from fossil fuels, improving efficiency, the relative newness of this technology to the OEMs, the eco-friendly government, and the new public awareness of environmental issues creates a perfect storm.

"Only a few years ago, the Detroit auto makers were sort of these 800-pound gorillas that no one would ever consider challenging,” he says.  “In the early 1900’s, there were lots of people with new ideas, and it was a level playing field.  Until recently, Chrysler and Ford had 50 plus more years of experience in automotive technology than a small start-up.  But now, they may only have two or three years of a technical advantage.  In the last 67 years, there has not been one new U.S. car company.  We have a relatively short three to four year window in order to develop new automotive production companies.  As soon as the big companies come out with their alternative fuel vehicles, that window of opportunity will shut.  There will never be another opportunity like this.  The time is now.”

Simon views his lack of direct automotive experience as a competitive advantage.  Calling on his experience with Kevlar and carbon fiber, he created a proprietary new body design that struck the balance that he was looking for between mass produce-able but rigid, safe, lightweight and affordable. Although there were many choices in exotic light weight materials, he settled on using a significant amount of aluminum  because of the abundance and low cost that it offers.  When he faces challenges, he identifies experts in the area and calls upon them to get their input and insight.

“Being a small group and part of the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE, I have been able to get a lot of inside knowledge that no one would share with me if I were directly involved in the industry,” says Simon.  “People have been willing to share information with me that they would normally charge for, which I can’t afford, and that’s helped quite a bit.”

Simon has relocated his company to the Fastlane to Green Technology business incubator located at Club Auto Sport in the heart of Silicon Valley.  His involvement with Club Auto Sport, in San Jose, California, has brought him great returns.  Its membership, made up of automotive experts, enthusiasts and racers, have supported Simon’s efforts and helped put him in touch with other knowledge sources that have proven invaluable.  While showcasing his Carbon Zero Roadster for the auto club at Laguna Seca, he was invited to display his vehicle at the Global Climate Summit in Southern California. There. He had the opportunity to show and discuss the roadster to Governors Schwarzenegger of California, Gregoire of Washington and Kulongoski of Oregon.

LEGOLAND, Philadelphia Style

 

LEGO Education has built an impressive display here at the  National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) conference in Philadelphia.  In the LEGO exhibit space, teachers and students can explore the wonderful array of LEGO products designed to enrich the study of Science and Engineering.

 

 

 I got hands-on practice with alternative vehicles including......

Human powered (By hand crank!)

 

Wind Powered.....

 

And Solar Powered.... 

 

Last night, we returned to the Franklin Institute for a screening of IMAX HUBBLE 3D an amazing documentary which chronicles the latest (and final) shuttle mission to the Hubble space telescope, to make necessary repairs and upgrades that should extend the Hubble’s productive life by years.  This great documentary premiers this weekend and I encourage you to see it in an IMAX theatre near you.

Pillar in the Carina Nebula...   

 

The Butterfly Nebula....
 

Fueling Our Future In Philadelphia

 

The Progressive Automotive X PRIZE  Education team is presenting at the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) conference in Philadelphia this week.  Our education program and Fuel Our Future Now (FOFN) website resources are featured in the Discovery Education booth on the exhibit floor, visited by a steady stream of inquisitive science teachers each day. The theme of the conference this year is Connecting Science Past with Science Future so discussions range from Ben Franklin’s kite to….The Dashboard of The Future of course. Appropriate topics for FOFN, a US Department of Energy sponsored program!

 

 Our DASH+ contest challenges teams of high school students nationwide to design a dashboard that will help drivers save fuel by providing feedback on how their driving is affecting their fuel efficiency. The entries have all been submitted, and we are currently making some tough decisions -- selecting the best of the best to advance to the next level. After a round of judging by auto and energy experts, the top three entries will be online at Fuel Our Future Now in May for online voting.  I’m encouraging the teachers here to have their students visit the site and vote for their favorite dashboard. I’ve also suggested that they make an assignment out of it and have their students justify their selections based on the science behind the designs. It is school after all.

Tonight we were treated to a screening of Discovery’s new documentary series, life.  The evening was hosted by The Franklin Institute, where we also had a chance to reflect on transportation of the past.

 

Tomorrow we visit Lego Education Land, right on the NSTA convention floor.  Stay tuned!