Automotive X Prize News - March 16th, 2008

Tesla: Recycling our Non-Toxic Battery Packs, a nine step process involving liquid nitrogen, a shredder, and the hammer mill :-)

Hybrid Technologies will be at NYIAS 2008, showing off their electric vehicle conversions. They are an official AXP competitor, so it will be interesting to talk to them about which of these many vehicles they hope to compete with.

I found a whole bunch of interesting videos this week: YouTube: AXP Teams at Detroit Auto Show 2008, YouTube: 130 MPG Ingocar, YouTube: Making of Loremo, Engineering TV: Jeep Renegade Interview, Engineering TV: Fisker Karma Interview, Aptera featured in Touchstone Energy Co-operative commercial.

There was a long article in the Independent: Governator Pushes Green at ECO:nomics on Friday, they covered Ethanol, Solar, Wind and Nuclear, but also the Automotive X Prize. There is a choice quote from Peter Diamandis (founder of the X Prize Foundation): "We keep asking the question, mystically, what would a car designed by Apple look like?" I'd like to know!

The Senate passes the same resolution in praise of the Automotive X Prize as the house did a few weeks ago.

The New York Times did an article this week on the Automotive X Prize: The Amazing Race, as Played in the Lab; it compares the prize contest to reality TV shows like America's Next Top Model, arguing that the motivations for participants are the same and that both derive their value from the psychological allure of people risking everything in public.

Milner ElectiCar E-REV. Derived from their AirCar (just remove the wings), it has 4 wheels, two 15 HP electric motors, and a 125cc 15 HP engine/generator. It goes 120 miles on 11kWh, which is 340 MPGe. They will be at the NYIAS. See also Edmunds, Green Car Congress