Automotive X Prize News: May 12th, 2008

Phoenix Motorcars now working with Electrovaya for Batteries, joining Malcolm Bricklin's Visionary Vehicles at the Electrovaya table. Apparently however they have not given up on the Altairnano batteries - they are hoping to offer both as options. See also AutoblogGreen and Clean Break and Altairnano Q1 Earnings Report.

Aptera Newsletter, including the video I talked about last week, and some additional information on some employees.

Who else thinks the Poulsen Hybrid is the sleeper team to win the X Prize? This story got widely repeated around the blogosphere, so Poulsen Hybrid must have got lots of traffic. Judging by the comments people like the price and the idea but are scared of theft and any damage it might do to the vehicle. See engadget.

Illinois Times story on Illuminati Motor Works, including lots of great info.

Judging the Tesla Roadster and Chevy Volt by different standards, highlighting how much more is expected of the Chevy Volt, even though it's a third of the price. It sucks to be a billion dollar company like GM. Except for that part about having a billion dollars to spend on R&D, of course :-)

Inside Tesla's First Electric Roadster Dealership, with photos. Apparently it's super low pressure, because you can't actually buy a Tesla there. You can only put your name on a list to buy one.

Automotive X Prize is hiring, team size to double. They are looking for "Team Development and Relations Director", "Sponsorship Activation and Relations Director", "Education Programs Director" or an "Executive Assistant". All positions in Santa Monica, California. It's a good sign for the future of the prize.

Catvolution, a site focusing on the MDI Compressed Air Vehicle. They have a video interview with Guy Negre and Shiva Vencat up, as well as an interview with Neil Anderson. Don't miss the little network of sites at the bottom - each has a little more information.

Wall Street Journal: Start-Ups Race to Produce Green Car, featuring Tesla, Th!nk, Loremo, Fisker, Mindset, and Gordon Murray Design. Strangely enough, the article does not mention the Automotive X Prize.

WCNC News: Aerocivic Video, an in depth look at the vehicle.

Iggyz: 100 MPG vehicle is here it just isn't consumer ready, a kind of rant, but it makes great reading. He tears into the Aptera for having 3 wheels, and thinks the Automotive X Prize is trying to do things right, but isn't holding out any hope... He also includes a pretty length list of interesting links.

Electricity in the Air over Chevy Volt, apparently the Chevy Volt has GM engineers all excited too :-)

Fisker's $80k Hybrid Hits the Road - first citing of a test mule.

More details on Triac emerge, including a new top speed of 80 MPH and a lowering of range to 100 miles (@45 MPH). See Green Vehicles.

GM continues gasoline HCCI work, apparently they got HCCI mode to work in idle, which everyone thinks is useless since they should instead be turning the engine off at idle :-)

VW Confirms 1L Concept Will Become Reality in 2010 - huge news! The 1L concept is for "1L/100km", which translates to about 235 MPG. See also the interesting comments at ecogeek.

In related news, Open Source Car (Oscar) catches VW's attention. It's also a tandem seat, narrow, high mileage vehicle. Why does VW need it if they already have the 1L? Maybe they want to squash it!