An Update on Design Judging
An Update on Design Judging, by Steve Wesoloski (pictured), Senior Advisor, Deputy Technical Operations at the AXP:
As our teams going through the process know quite well, the guidelines in this first phase have been very strict. We've asked teams to probe their viability before on-road testing begins in the Spring. The priority during this phase is to ensure that all teams understand the criteria, that entered vehicles meet or exceed the criteria, and that teams appear capable of building a production intent vehicle to these standards in time for formal vehicle challenges. No small feat for any company.
Thomas pointed out in a comment to my last post that team numbers continue to fall: I confirm his count, there are only 73 listed now. So clearly the rigorous requirements are having their effect. At one time I considered starting my own AXP team, but it only took me a couple of months of doing some analysis to determine that I didn't have anywhere near enough time, energy or money to properly compete - building a car is expensive hard work, let alone building one which is capable of 100 MPGe and is designed for production... Kudos to those teams who are still hanging in there, making it work. If even half of the remaining teams actually race it will still be a huge number of teams at the starting block!
Among the 17 teams we've lost this time: Avion, Lightning Hybrids, Motive Industries, Red Light Racing. The complete list of teams in table format follows after the break.
| Official Teams‚ August 20th, 2009 | Official Teams‚ Sept 22nd, 2009 | Comment |
| 7K Hamsters | 7K Hamsters | |
| Aero-Siordia Hyper-X Racing | Aero-Siordia Hyper-X Racing | |
| All Power Labs | All Power Labs | |
| Alterna | Alterna | |
| Alternative Fuel Sciences | Alternative Fuel Sciences | |
| American HyPower | American HyPower | |
| AMP | AMP | |
| Apet-X | Apet-X | |
| Aptera | Aptera | |
| Avion | S1 | |
| BDCOTSRUS | BDCOTSRUS | |
| Belloso Motor Company | Belloso Motor Company | |
| BITW Technologies | BITW Technologies | |
| Boulder Electric Vehicle | Boulder Electric Vehicle | |
| Brilliant-EV | Brilliant-EV | |
| Combined Technology Solutions | Combined Technology Solutions | |
| Cornell 100 MPG Team | Cornell 100 MPG Team | |
| Daheco Engines | S2 | |
| Delta Motorsport | S3 | |
| Eco-Taxi | S4 | |
| Eddison *2‚ Mass Management | Eddison *2‚ Mass Management | |
| Electric Truck | S5 | |
| Eltra Technology, Inc. | Eltra Technology, Inc. | |
| EnerMotion | EnerMotion | |
| Enertia Motors | Enertia Motors | |
| Engineous Power | Engineous Power | |
| Enginer | Enginer | |
| Envera | Envera | |
| ENVI | S6 | |
| EVIN | EVIN | |
| Falcon Future | Falcon Future | |
| The Finishing Dutch (Prautotype) | S7 | |
| Future Vehicle Technologies | Future Vehicle Technologies | |
| Gaia Transport | Gaia Transport | |
| Gomecsys | Gomecsys | |
| groupXcaliber | S8 | |
| Herf Duo | Herf Duo | |
| Illuminati Motor Works | Illuminati Motor Works | |
| Ino8 | Ino8 | |
| Integrated Innovations | S9 | |
| Jordan Engineering | Jordan Engineering | |
| Kinetix Motors | Kinetix Motors | |
| Liberty Motors | Liberty Motors | |
| Lightning Hybrids | S10 | |
| Loremo | Loremo | |
| Maxi-Eco Team | Maxi-Eco Team | |
| Millmac | Millmac | |
| MIT VDS Vision XP | MIT VDS Vision XP | |
| Motive Industries | S11 | |
| Nelson TYWA Power Corp. | S12 | |
| NorthWest Energy Research Association | NorthWest Energy Research Association | |
| OptaMotive | OptaMotive | |
| Parr Piston Engine Company | S13 | |
| Persu Mobility, Inc. | Persu Mobility, Inc. | |
| PMC | S14 | |
| Porteon | Porteon | |
| Poulsen Hybrid | Poulsen Hybrid | |
| RaceAbout Association | RaceAbout Association | |
| Red Light Racing | S15 | |
| Ricker Truck | S16 | |
| SABA Motors | SABA Motors | |
| San Fernando Hybrid Alliance | San Fernando Hybrid Alliance | |
| Spira | Spira | |
| SSI Racing | SSI Racing | |
| T3 Motion | T3 Motion | |
| Tango (Commuter Cars) | Tango (Commuter Cars) | |
| Tata Motors | Tata Motors | |
| Team EVI | Team EVI | |
| Team EVX | Team EVX | |
| Team FourSight | Team FourSight | |
| Global-E | Global-E | |
| Team GreenWorks | Team GreenWorks | |
| Team HydroPhi | Team HydroPhi | |
| Team ULV-3 | Team ULV-3 | |
| Tesla Motors | Tesla Motors | |
| The Little Engine that Can | S17 | |
| Tri-Hybrid Stealth | Tri-Hybrid Stealth | |
| TTW Italia | TTW Italia | |
| TW4XP | TW4XP | |
| Urbee | Urbee | |
| USA Electric Cars | USA Electric Cars | |
| V-Mobile | V-Mobile | |
| Velozzi | Velozzi | |
| Veperformance | Veperformance | |
| West Philly Hybrid X Team (EVX Team) | West Philly Hybrid X Team (EVX Team) | |
| Western Washington University | Western Washington University | |
| WIKISPEED | WIKISPEED | |
| X-Tracer Team Switzerland | X-Tracer Team Switzerland | |
| XLR8SUN | XLR8SUN | |
| ZAP! | ZAP! |
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Nice to see your blog. I think the field has dwindled with the design judging. Some interesting team have left along the way.
I think the Progressive Auto Xprize group could put more effort into promoting this. Their Blog and updates have been rather sparce. They have to monitor every comment which leads to a bland site not open to free exchange of ideas and community involvement.
I put together this link to keep tracks of teams and efforts that I found particularly interesting. A number of teams are gone since last updated.
http://takchesstoi.blogspot.com/2008/10/blog-post_7814.html
keep up the good work.
http://green.autoblog.com/2009/09/09/avion-withdraws-from-auto-x-prize-cites-increasing-costs-of-par/
A post why Avion withdrew.
Hi Eric, it's good to discover your site--interesting reading throughout. Looks like the entrant list is down to 42 now
takchess mentioned...
> I think the field has dwindled with the design judging
...but in fairness to the other "Ex Prize" teams let's note that's not all that's going on here. I think the PAXP is going to be a wonderful promotion for PEVs and plug-in hybrids, and I think that's valuable in many ways, but the final rules knocked all the IC cars out of the running, and it's a lot of effort for the IC guys to invest just to get tromped in public. That wasn't much of a problem for Kinetic Vehicles (at the bottom of the technology food chain and never in this for the win), but it's a rough one for the folks taking it seriously and hoping that prize money will help finance a manufacturing operation.
The PAXP web site implies the missing teams are teams that didn't meet PAXP standards, but some of the teams I've been in touch with simply found the game not worth the candle, and withdrew so they could put their time and money into making high efficiency cars.