Progressive Automotive X PRIZE

AMP - After the X PRIZE

AMP, a Finalist and electric drivetrain producer based in Cincinnati, Ohio, has succeeded in bringing test vehicles to market since the completion of the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE last summer. AMP's first all-electric models were the Saturn Sky/Pontiac Solstice convertibles and the Chevrolet Equinox.

“We probably have 100,000 electric miles on our vehicles,” states Steve Burns, AMP founder and CEO. “These early customers and actual road miles have helped us refine our craft to the point that we are now ready to validate and crash test our vehicles.”

In addition to the development work on their core GM products, AMP has delivered the first of 1,000 AMP electrified Mercedes Benz ML to Northern Lights Energy of Iceland. The agreement for 1,000 vehicles was signed on April 14, 2011 and volume delivery is expected to begin this fall. According to Burns, “Iceland is kind of a perfect storm for EV's. High gas prices, almost free electricity, high taxes on ICE based vehicles and moderate temperatures. Quite a test bed.”

Spira - After the X PRIZE

Spira, an international Finalist, has continued their push to launch a unique vehicle exclusive to the Asian automotive markets.  The Spira4U, currently being developed by an American team based in Thailand, has a foam body construction.  The vehicle showcased in the competition was powered by an internal combustion engine, but the team has recently begun collaboration with Electric Motorsport and the Tiger Motorcycle factory to create an electric Spira. 

“We are considering a couple of partners for producing electric Spiras for export. We are concentrating on an electric version as we are still seeking a gas scooter engine supplier that will meet emissions in the USA and Europe,” states Lon Ballard, CEO.  While developing new versions of the Spira4U, the team continues to work through vehicle safety requirements including vehicle crash performance.

Edison2 - After the X PRIZE

Edison2, the $5 million winner of the Mainstream Class has been very productive following the X PRIZE competition. The company is rapidly moving towards commercialization of their vehicle and has been investigating alternative drivetrains for use in the Very Light Car vehicle platform. These alternate drivetrains include a battery-powered electric version of the Very Light Car (VLC,) which, according to Edison2 spokesperson David Brown, “can solve EV's issues of range and battery weight.” Brown predicts that the electric VLC will have a range of over 100 miles using a 10 kilowatt-hour (kwh) battery pack. In comparison, the Nissan Leaf has a 77 mile range using 24 kwh.

Another important part of Edison2’s path to commercialization is safety. Ongoing computer-simulation crash testing is confirming what the team already knows from their history in racing:  with the right architecture a low mass car can be safe by today's standards. Edison2 plans to begin live crash testing this fall.

Aside from the company’s technological development, Edison2 is growing its company as well, acquiring a new property on the outskirts of Lynchburg, Va.  – the former Virginia Castings foundry at Mt. Athos.  This property will house a test track, on-site crash testing and the company’s offices. Edison2 has also expanded their team, bringing in additional design expertise from Jason Hill of Design by 11 and electric car expertise from Ron Cerven, the former team leader from Li-ion Motors, who led the Li-ion team to victory in the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize Alternative Class.

“The next version Very Light Car will be roomier, friendlier, pass safety standards and turn heads -- while maintaining breakthrough efficiency,” stated David Brown.  It appears that Edison2 is well on their way to making that statement a reality.

Team EVX – After the X PRIZE

West Philadelphia High School, better known as Team EVX, was eliminated from the competition during the Knockout Phase, but the team has continued their work with efficient vehicles and developing the next generation of technology savvy young adults.

Early in 2011, Edison2, Mainstream Class winner, created a chassis of the Very Light Car for Team EVX to build as an all-electric car, the Electric Very Light Car (EVLC). The team has decided on a drivetrain utilizing Azure Dynamics electric motor and International Battery Lithium Iron Phosphate battery pack. Subsequently, five students on the EVX Team entered the Clean Energy division of the Conrad Foundation’s Spirit of Innovation Awards (SOIA) that challenges high school students to use science, technology and entrepreneurship to solve real-world 21^st century problems. The students detailed their work on the EVLC for the contest and partnered with University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business to create a business and marketing plan. In May, the students won the SOIA and will be working on additional components of the business plan this summer.

On April 15, after tweaking and tuning the EVX GT, the team’s internal combustion engine powered competition vehicle, the team took a large group of students and teachers to the Green Grand Prix at Watkins Glen International, which featured a short and long road rally. The Chevy Volt won the short road rally and the EVX GT won the long road rally and logged the best MPGe of any car in the competition.

Perhaps most importantly, Simon Hauger, Team EVX leader, mentor, and program developer, has been working to advance the work of the EVX Team from after-school to an official high school program. The program, the Sustainability Workshop, will be housed at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in conjunction with the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster (GPIC), a $129 million initiative of the Department of Energy. The team is partnering with the GPIC, the Philadelphia School District and Drexel University for this effort and started classes early this month.

“For all that the X PRIZE did to foster the advancement of the automotive industry, the greater achievement will be a fundamental rethinking about how we educate today’s young people for tomorrow’s green economy,” states Ann Cohen, Team EVX advisor and mentor.

West Philly EVX will also be honored by Popular Mechanics for their achievements at a ceremony in New York on October 10, 2011.  What an inspiring group of young adults!

X PRIZE Education at Solar Decathlon and NC Museum of Life and Science

Education Outreach for the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE continued in September and October, 2011 at the  U.S.Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon held in the National Mall's West Potomac Park in Washington, D.C. Nineteen collegiate teams from around the world  competed to determine which group had created the most efficient solar powered home. Competition categories included Architecture, Energy Balance, Affordability, Engineering, and Market Appeal.

Though quite a few of the competition days were solar-challenged, the demonstration homes performed well, and visitors lined up for a chance to inspect the innovative design and construction inside and out.
   

 

 The Under The Hood - Drive Change Today activity cart was very popular with the energy-efficiency-minded Solar Decathlon visitors.  The activities in the cart are designed to provide a hands-on introduction to principles of energy use, by-products of energy consumption, and conservation. 

Mixing  vinegar and baking soda provides an immediate Carbon Dioxide reaction...

 

 

 

 

 ...while yeast and water take longer to work together to create the same effect.

 

 

 

 

The aerodynamic properties of cars of different shapes and sizes were compared on test tracks. With hair dryers creating wind resistance, it was clear that boxy designs and luggage racks can drastically reduce energy efficiency.





A favorite activity was the battery circuit station, where the challenge was to complete an energy circuit utilizing a battery, wires and tape, in order to light a small bulb.  The more batteries, the brighter the light, until the tiny lights blow from the energy supplied by about 6 to 7 D batteries.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

The principles how of interlocking gears work to control speed and direction of movement were explored by many visitors to the booth as well.

At the NC Museum of Life and Science in Durham, a week of Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE education events and activities were held in the museum's hands-on investigation lab space.  

   Museum visitors learned that under-inflated tires and dirty air filters are two enemies of energy efficiency.

 

 

 

Visitors used a high-magnification camera and display screen to compare clean and dirty filters and learned how a dirty air filter slows the intake of air needed for efficient burning of fuel. 

 

  The challenge of designing and constructing paper  luggage racks and testing their effect on a car's aerodynamics was also a popular activity using the museum's high tech spring loaded tester track.

 

Celebrating Science

This has been a busy season for  Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE education outreach. In early March the National Science Teachers Association National Conference on Science Education was held in San Francisco, CA.   This gathering of science teachers from across the nation provided ample opportunities to promote Fuel Our Future Now (FOFN) resources in partnership with Discovery Education.

 

 

Conference activities also included a chance to meet the cast of Discovery’s Mythbusters. Science teachers love the Mythbusters for bringing science concepts to life in a fun and often explosive manner.

And in the spirit of making science accessible and fun, we met a true master of the art, Bill Nye, another idol for science teachers.  Many of the 3,000+ teachers in the audience grew up watching The Science Guy bring scientific concepts to life.

 

 

The NSTA experience included a visit to the CA Academy of Sciences which features a living roof representing the seven hills of San Francisco.

The Computer Using Educators conference in Palm Springs, CA also afforded an opportunity to partner with Discovery Education to promote FOFN resources to this annual gathering of tech savvy teachers, including the Discovery Educators Network of teachers who are super-users of Discoverystreaming. Copies of the complete K-12 FOFN curriculum binder were given to two lucky teachers.

 

At the San Diego Science Festival, we showcased a model of Edison2’s PIAXP-winning Very Light Car to fascinated expo visitors.  This popular event held annually in San Diego’s Petco Park was attended by approximately 20,000 people and provided yet another perfect opportunity to promote the resources available at FOFN.   

X PRIZE at AltCar Expo!

 
X PRIZE was well-represented at the 5^th annual Alt Car Expo and Conference at the Santa Monica Civic Center on October 1 and 2. Li-ion Motors and X-Tracer, winners of the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE in the Alternative Class, were on-hand displaying their winning cars, posing for pictures and answering lots of questions from alternative car enthusiasts of all ages.

 
The AltCar Expo is one of the most extensive presentations of alternative technology vehicles and transportation, infrastructure, renewable energies, energy efficiency and urban planning found worldwide. It offers a rare hands-on experience with all technologies. The Focus on Fleet Conference supplies the Fleet Industry with the cutting edge information on funding, alternative vehicle technology and availability, infrastructure and more.

The two-day event culminated with a panel discussion, A Behind The Scenes Look at the Progressive Insurance Automotive X  PRIZE  which I had the pleasure of moderating with panelists Don Taylor, X PRIZE’s Senior Advisor for Competition Rules; Ron Riedener, Team Leader for X-Tracer and  CEO of Peraves AG; and Ron Cerven, Team leader and Program Manager for Li-ion Motors, Inc.  In addition to presentations by each of the panelists, the session included screenings of Accelerating the Future with video highlights of the competition and an overview of the awards presentation ceremonies and related events recently held in Washington DC.

    

Launching a New Car Company is No Small Feat

Bringing a new vehicle to market is a complicated and expensive process, even for established car companies. It’s not unusual to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to do it. So it’s no wonder companies like Honda, Ford and GM tend to stick with the tried and true -- and the profitable. Even those that went out on a limb, like Toyota with its Prius hybrid, lost a lot of money before eventually turning a profit for what many skeptics once dubbed a risky experiment. Similarly, whether GM’s Chevy Volt or Nissan's Leaf will be popular and profitable is today a question for debate.

 

Indeed, start-up companies -- such as any one of the finalist teams in the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE -- face an even steeper challenge, largely because of massive up-front capital costs. Cars not only have to be engineered, they have to be built, and part costs are a major barrier to profitability in low volumes. Even more expensive, however, are the machines used to put all those parts together. Auto-related news stories often feature one class of tooling machines common to the auto industry -- hulking robots that precisely lift, position and weld frames, doors and windows together on the factory assembly line to make a car.

 

Unfortunately, it costs far more per vehicle to produce a limited run of vehicles than it is to produce at high volumes. The limiting factor is that there are few ways to start small and cheap, and then scale up as demand increases. To use a simple example, if an aspiring automaker has to spend $10 million to produce 10 vehicles, then each vehicle has to bear $1 million of that cost, before adding any margin for profit. 

 

Clearly, to make a business case to investors, startup car companies must prove that sufficient demand exists to assure their investors will get their money back, plus a bit more. That means selling enough cars to make up the cost of the parts, labor, and excruciatingly expensive tooling.

 

Tesla Motors has taken heat from skeptics and admirers alike for selling its groundbreaking electric roadster for $109,000, a price far out of reach for most consumers. While hardly a car for the masses, it well illustrates the difficulty automotive start-ups face. Even with the successful sale of over 1,000 roadsters, Tesla nevertheless required a substantial government-backed loan to produce its next generation all-electric Model S sedan. Even with the loan, Tesla estimates the Model S will cost consumers more than $50,000, and that’s with a $7,500 federal subsidy.

 

Indeed, when innovation moves at a snail’s pace in the auto industry, it should come as no surprise that Tesla was the first American automotive IPO in more than 50 years.

 

It is my sincere hope that other automotive IPOs will follow. Certainly, the winners and finalists in the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE have proved that attractive and safe vehicles can get 100 MPGe, and I truly believe Americans are ready for such an automotive revolution. While the journey to this point has just begun for many of these teams, I look forward to the day when consumers have a wide range of truly ground-breaking energy efficient models to choose from.

 

The Origins of the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE -- And Its Impact

This is a guest posting by Felix Kramer, Founder of the California Cars Initiative (CalCars.org)

Five years ago, when the Automotive X Prize was just an idea, gas prices were seesawing, and people were fed up with paying a billion dollars a day for foreign oil.  We're still addicted to oil -- but thanks in large part to the X Prize, we can see a way out.

Back then, the famed Hypercar spinoff from Rocky Mountain Institute had previewed a future of lightweight, aerodynamic, safe autos. And everyone who'd looked at ways to reduce greenhouse gases knew the answer had to include getting our vehicles off fossil fuels. It was time for cars to take a quantum leap.

Meanwhile, promising cars like the GM EV1 and Toyota RAV4 EV were history. But the death of the electric car turned out to be just the end of one chapter. In 2004, CalCars.org showed how to convert hybrids to plug in, plastering five-foot wide signs proclaiming "100+MPG" on the sides of our Prius retrofits. And Tesla raised money to build a sexy sportscar that would beat almost anything on the road. We could see a future of optimized vehicles running on cleaner, cheaper, domestic electricity.

The Automotive X Prize launched in 2006-07 with ambitions to inspire the public and spark innovation to change the auto industry. Getting the competition right wasn't easy for its dedicated, creative staff:

• When "100 MPG" came up against vehicles powered by different fuels, experts developed "MPGe" for apples-to-apples comparisons of electricity with petroleum and renewable biofuels.
• Faced with public expectations for glitzy track races, planners who knew drivers most need a fuel-miser for 25-mile-a-day commutes worked out new tests. They enlisted the U.S. Department of Energy's National Labs to validate the performance of innovative solutions.
• With hopes that some great idea would emerge from a quirky corner, they split the Prize into mainstream and alternative paths.
• And, knowing that imaginative, unique solutions also had to find their ways to millions of drivers, they made competitors show their designs could be safe, affordably mass-produced, and sold for a profit.

As we reach the end of this historic competition, we all wonder who will win. But it's never been more true that "the journey is the reward." Competitors that didn't make it all the way have gained significant visibility, investments, and partnerships. Some may become successful manufacturers. Others will see their teams, intellectual property, and visions acquired by larger companies. Many will celebrate their victories.

And the Prize's impact extends far beyond the competition. X Prize raising the MPG bar certainly encouraged Congress to increase fuel efficiency standards. As we debate what new car stickers should say about efficiency and emissions, a new coalition is urging a goal of 60 MPG by 2025. The DOE has funded development of an advanced U.S. battery industry and lent carmakers billions to retool for green automotive jobs. States and companies have added their incentive programs to the federal $7,500 tax credits for new plug-in cars. Engineering students have been inspired to find jobs in a reviving auto industry. High schoolers have seen how cars can be cool and clean.

And automakers? They've been watching closely and making industry-changing decisions. In 2006, I became the world's first consumer owner of a plug-in hybrid. Now, before the end of this X Prize year, my family hopes to replace that PHEV conversion with a Chevy Volt that we can drive everywhere. And we'll trade our reliable Toyota Camry Hybrid for a Nissan LEAF's daily drives with no gasoline. The cars are coming: the U.S. is on track for a million mass-produced plug-in cars by 2015!

What's next? How about a follow-on prize? As the high-MPG cars arrive, it's clear it will take decades before they'll make up a large enough fraction of our country's 250 million vehicles to have much impact on fossil fuel use. Visionaries like Andy Grove are urging us to retrofit tens of millions of pickup trucks, SUVs, vans, and buses. Like the Home Star building retrofits we're now accelerating, national gas guzzler conversions could create green jobs in communities everywhere. So CalCars hopes for a Drive Star competition -- from X Prize, DOE, or another sponsor -- to spark "The Big Fix," creating a global industry to upgrade many of the world's 900 million vehicles.

X Prize began with the Ansari X Prize for space flight. As the X Prize Foundation broadens, with prizes in genomics, lunar exploration, and ocean oil cleanup, it's never been clearer that humanity and our planet face immense challenges. We used to say "the sky's the limit." Now that we recognize we need to save that one sky ASAP, we look to future competitions for inspiration, ideas, and a global rescue.

The Competition Isn’t Over Yet: Why Validation Matters

With the on-track stages behind us and the results of those on-track stages prominently available on the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE website, one might think the winners of this $10M competition are a foregone conclusion. Well, here are a few reasons why you should think again. 

The winners must pass the Validation Stage, during which they must achieve an efficiency result on the dynamometer high enough to ensure that, when averaged 50/50 with the on-track results, it equals 100 MPGe or better. A dynamometer, or "dyno" for short, is a device that allows engineers to test a vehicle by simulating the loads associated with driving without actually moving (basically, a treadmill for cars - think of the recent Lexus super car commercial that revs its engine until it shatters a wine glass).

Though two teams advancing to Validation are alone in their respective classes, Edison2 (Mainstream Class) and X-Tracer (Alternative Tandem Class), they each must still meet some very difficult requirements on the chassis dynamometer. If you recall, competition officials ruled that Edison2 was not at fault for the incidents at Coast Down that damaged the engines of both of their Mainstream Class entries. Consequently, officials granted Edison2 a waiver from Validation testing at Argonne National Lab as the cost and timetable for repair and calibration of the engines was not feasible. However, because Roush had conducted dynamometer testing on the Edison2 vehicles that were fielded at Knockout and Finals, officials have agreed to review these third party results to determine whether they can be accepted in lieu of testing at Argonne. Tune in to the Award Ceremony on September 16 to learn how the officials ultimately ruled.

That leaves the Alternative Class. To verify the on-track results from Michigan International Speedway, vehicles must repeat efficiency, range, and emissions testing – not an easy feat on the dyno where vehicles can’t benefit from air cooling at speed. In addition, they must survive an entirely new test for gradeability, also known as a simulated hill climb. To do so, they must maintain a minimum 55 mph speed on a simulated 4 percent grade (incline) continuously for 15 minutes. They must also surmount fuel economy, range, and greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions tests.

All vehicles must meet strict EPA emissions standards and achieve an on-road life cycle greenhouse gas emissions level of 200 equivalent grams of CO₂ per mile or less. This is also known as a wells-to-wheels (WTW) calculation that accounts for the upstream pollution associated with extraction, transportation, storage, and distribution of the energy that drives the wheels. Vehicles that don’t achieve these requirements during Validation Testing will not be eligible for the Grand Prize. 

For the five teams in the Alternative Side-by-Side Class, placement was determined by the Combined Performance & Efficiency Test, the last event conducted at the Finals Stage. Given that Team Li-ion achieved 171.4 MPGe in on-track testing, they do not appear to be in danger of falling short of the fuel economy mark. However, should they fail any component of testing on the dyno, including the simulated hill climb, they would fail to pass the Validation Stage. In that event, eligibility for the prize would fall to the next team in the placement order, in this case RaceAbout.

Validation Stage testing is no slam dunk. Teams must not only pass these very strenuous challenges, they must achieve 100 MPGe or better when averaged 50/50 with on-track results to claim the prize.

The bottom line: No one will know for sure until the winners are revealed at the final Award Ceremony on September 16^th. So stay tuned!