The idea: to produce a practical car (at least 10,000 vehicles per year) that can run over 100 mpg. You need to produce less than 200 grams per mile of emissions. You can use any of 14 different sources.
The categories: one for the "mainstream class", with four wheels, four passengers and 200 miles autonomy. Another for "alternative class" cars, with at least 2 passengers and any number of wheels. Finally, you can compete in the "demonstration class", only for major automakers high efficiency vehicles which have sold at least 10.000 cars per year.
The prize: 5 million for the mainstream class, 2.5 million for the two first vehicles in the alternative class, no money for major manufacturers.
Some of the competitors (and the pictures I love to post):
"Look, ma, I bought half a vehicle!": the three wheeled, "alternative" Future Vehicles Technologies' FVT car.
Straight from the "Star Wars Imperial-Combat-Vehicles Gallery": Gaia Transport MC2 (Gaia Transport, dude!
). They claim 10 miles per kilowatt-hour (that translates to 300 mpg under the VERY INTERESTING equivalency rules that perhaps FIA should read. Yeah, sure, 300 mpg and it probably will fly and clean the kitchen by itself when idle.)
Tata competes with the already discussed Tata Nano. WTF? In the alternative class? Why? Is it a three wheeler or can it carry only three passengers? I did not get their press release. I won't post a picture of it.
Global-E E1 (I think): "This vehicle utilizes an existing drive train, trade secrets and patentable software." Patentable software?
I was going to write some smart remarks about Zero-Fuel entrance: no car, just a regular car, but hear this: the car uses ZeroFuel. So what?
Well, "ZeroFuel is a safe carrier of ammonia and hydrogen in a water-carbamide (aka urea) solution."
Yes, I did not get a single word, except urea. A car that runs on piss?
So I googled for all of you and found that for you "to use hydrogen as a clean energy source, some engineers want to pack hydrogen into a larger molecule, rather than compressing the gas into a tank. A gas flows easily out of a tank, but getting hydrogen out of a molecule requires a catalyst... The catalyst chemically reacts with ammonia borane, a molecule that stores hydrogen densely, to release the hydrogen as a gas..."
Well, I'll give them the benefit of doubt. Apparently you can use a liquid that is not flammable at all, like... ehem... pee, and pass it through some sort of screen (the catalyst) and you get H2. Nice workaround, you don't have to compress or refrigerate the hydrogen.
The phrase "No gasoline, thanks. Fil'er up with three gallons of regular pee" could become common.
I may continue tomorrow with some other notable entrants, or you can check them for yourself here: http://www.progressiveautoxprize.org/teams
