From more than 100 entrants, 43 teams and 53 vehicles have now advanced to the most important, and possibly exciting, stage of the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize – performance and safety testing. The 43 teams represent 10 countries, 18 U.S. states, and six fuel types and all have passed the fuel-efficiency competition’s Design Judging phase. Vehicles must be able to achieve more than 100mpg or energy equivalent (MPGe), as well as being vehicles that people want to buy, meeting market needs for price, size, capability, safety and performance.
Of the total of 53 vehicles moving forward in the competition, 28 are represented in the Mainstream Class and 25 are in the Alternative Class. All teams have proved to the competition’s automotive and technical experts that their vehicles will be available in time for formal vehicle challenges next spring and, importantly, will be production capable, and can plausibly meet or exceed the competition requirements.
“The teams and vehicles represented in this group are the most viable in our competition and we believe that together they are positioned to make a huge impact on the automotive marketplace,” said Dr Peter Diamandis, X Prize CEO and Chairman.
"The work that these teams have done is really amazing—congratulations to them all on getting this far," said Progressive’s CEO Glenn Renwick. "Over the next year, we'll see significant advancement of these designs, taking us even closer toward the ultimate goal of making super fuel efficient vehicles a viable choice for consumers."
Qualified Teams
A complete list of qualified teams is below. More information on fuel types, photos of the vehicles and the teams themselves is available here.
Performance testing will begin in spring 2010 and winners will be announced in September 2010. Exact dates and locations will be announced shortly.
- American HyPower
- AMP
- APET-X
- Aptera
- BDCOTSRUS
- BITW Technologies
- Boulder Electric Vehicle
- Combined Technology Solutions (CTS)
- Cornell 100+ MPG Team
- Delta Motorsport
- Edison2
- Eltra
- EnerMotion
- Enginer
- Envera
- FVT Racing
- Global-E
- Gomecsys
- Illuminati Motor Works
- OptaMotive
- Persu Mobility, Inc.
- RaceAbout Association
- SABA Motors
- Spira
- SSI Racing
- Tango (Commuter Cars)
- Tata Motors Limited
- Team EVI
- Team EVX
- Team FourSight
- Team HydroPhi
- Team ULV-3
- Tesla Motors
- TTW Italia
- TW4XP
- Urbee
- VePerformance
- West Philly Hybrid X (EVX)
- Western Washington University
- WIKISPEED
- X-Tracer Team Switzerland
- ZAP
DASH+
The Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize has also formally opened registration for a national high school contest, funded by a U.S. Department of Energy grant. The contest is called DASH+ and encourages students to work together using creativity, design, and math and science skills to develop new gauges, instruments and interfaces to create the “Dashboard of the Future”. The DASH+ will hopefully challenge drivers to change their behavior to maximize fuel efficiency and reduce environmental impact.
DASH+ teams must include two to five U.S. students enrolled in 9th through 12th grade, aged 14 or older, in fall 2009 and have an adult mentor. Registration is available now.
