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Print articleFrom the organisation that brought the competition to build the first private spacecraft (won by Mojave Aerospace Ventures for the flight of SpaceShipOne) with a prize of $10m, a new competition is about to be launched that will produce a 100mpg production car.
Automotive X-Prize (AXP) expects that a wide range of teams, from students to start-up companies to large manufacturers will want to enter the competition. The final prize amount has not been announced yet, but the ?winners will split a multi-million dollar purse.?
The AXP organisers say: ?Nothing drives innovation and discovery like competition. Competitors will collaborate and compete with inspired teams from around the world to work on this grand challenge: create viable, production-capable vehicles that are super-efficient and meet the needs of consumers.?
The goal of the Automotive X-PRIZE is to ?inspire a new generation of super-efficient vehicles that help break our addiction to oil and stem the effects of climate change.?
The AXP organisers are adamant that the competition results in real cars available for purchase, not concept cars.
The multi-million dollar cash purse will be awarded to the teams that win a long-distance stage race for clean, production-capable vehicles that exceed 100 MPG equivalent (MPGe) and produce no more Greenhouse Gases that 200 grams per mile.
The competition will result in two classes of car: Mainstream and Alternative. The mainstream class will be a conventional car that can carry 4+ passengers and has 4 wheels. The alternative must carry 2 or more passengers, but can have as many wheels as the inventor wants.
