US$10m fuel efficiency competition moves into final phases

Only about a third of the initial field remains in contention for the Automotive X Prize -- one of the richest competitions of its kind in the world. Event organisers will put contenders through several months of gruelling tests from April to August at Michigan's major speedway

The timeline and track venues for the Automotive X Prize for super fuel-efficient vehicles were announced at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit earlier this month. Originally comprising 111 teams and 136 vehicles, the field has been whittled down to 41 teams and 51 cars, which will run through their paces, starting April 26 and continuing through until August 2010 in Michigan.

With a prize pool of US$10 million at stake, there's still plenty of competition duking it out, with entries from a mix of big-name auto makers, start-ups, universities and back-shed inventors. Eliminations to date have seen an initial entry count from a dozen nations and 25 states of the US pared back to 10 countries and 18 US states. Of 14 different fuel types in use at the start, just six remain. The West Philadelphia school team we reported on in October remains in contention. 

The selection criteria for participating vehicles are stringent. Topping the priority list is a 100 MPGe (miles per gallon or energy equivalent, measured by the New European Driving Cycle -- Europe's updated set of fuel-efficiency metrics taking into account not just fossil fuel consumption but range, emissions and performance.

This idea behind the Automotive X Prize is to challenge teams to come up with cars capable of surpassing the concept phase -- that is, as well as being supremely fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly, competing vehicles have to be viable for production and for day to day use by consumers. Like the local Global Green Challenge and World Solar Challenge, the Automotive X Prize field is divided into mainstream and alternative vehicle classes.

The X Prize Foundation's charter is, after all, to encourage the development of technologies "for the benefit of humanity". This is not just in the automotive field but across a wide technological spectrum: education, globalisation, climate change and other facets of the life sciences, energy and the environment, space exploration and genomics.

Having reduced a substantially larger field down to 51 vehicles fulfilling the fuel efficiency requirements, the next phase of the Automotive X Prize will put them through their paces for wider efficiency, safety and performance criteria, in simulated real-world conditions at the Michigan International Speedway in the south-eastern Michigan town of Brooklyn.

The schedule will begin with the so-called Shakedown Stage covering brake testing, lane changing, acceleration, and refuelling/recharging time. Next comes the Knockout Qualifying Stage, at which point officials double-check vehicles to see who comes in how far under emissions thresholds. Those who just scrape in aren't likely to survive this phase.

In June come the Finals, in which the cream of each class is selected through a series of on-track challenges. By this time they're checking out the characteristics like the finer aerodynamic nuances and rolling resistance of each participant. Lastly, in August, comes the validation stage, in which the vehicles are taken into a lab for dynamometer testing.

The winners will be announced at an award ceremony scheduled for September in Washington, DC.

Read the latest Carsales Network news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at www.carsales.mobi