Competition Guidelines for PIAXP Released

The guidelines themselves contain a quick list of the major changes, on pages 5 and 6, but I've also done a quick scan of the document for anything unusual...

• Competition Schedule Changes [!]: They are postponing or even canceling the "qualifying races" which were to be held originally in Sept of 2009. They are being replaced by some "shake-down stages" and a "knock-out qualifier" to occur between May and August of 2010. Effectively this gives teams an extra 9 months to get their vehicles ready. The final stage race schedule has not been changed. I think this is a very positive change, for a number of reasons: First, with the late release of these guidelines, teams need more time to adjust. Second, everyone knows that startup schedules slip, and this has given teams the slip many probably needed anyway :-). Third, the idea of five "qualifying stages" always struck me as kind of strange - replacing them with a knock-out qualifier makes things much more intuitive. In fact I hope they back off wanting three shake-down stages and suffice with just one - I see the shakedown stages as primarily benefiting the teams, and not for general public consumption. The knock-out qualifier should be the first big public splash.
• The aforementioned Demonstration Division is officially spelled out. The Alternative Class has been divided into two pieces, the side-by-side seating and the tandem seating class. Both of these were expected changes, it's great to have tandem seating officially allowed.
• The prize money has been reallocated [!]. It's now split 50% ($5M) to Mainstream Class, 25% ($2.5M) to Alternative side-by-side, and 25% ($2.5M) to Alternative tandem. No money is awarded for the Demonstration Division. I think this division better represents the actual split among teams - there are many alternative class competitors...
• Many performance requirements have been relaxed. Emissions requirements have also been relaxed. Safety requirements are spelled out in much better detail. CO2e calculations have been updated (and are now easier to meet for EVs). Obviously all of these details are key for team engineers.
• Data submission requirements. Teams must submit a huge trove of information by May 1st 2009, including 3D CAD renderings, business plans, safety information, battery analysis, system-level Bill Of Materials (BOM), and warranty information. It'll take a big team of people to get that stuff in order if you haven't started, so hopefully teams are already on top of this stuff.