Tesla Withdraws from Automotive X Prize

Stuff.tv exclusive: Tesla pulls out of Automotive X Prize, they intend to focus on moving the Model S towards production instead. They will actually still race the Model S in the "Demonstration Division" of the Automotive X Prize, meaning that it will race along side the other cars, but will not have a chance to win the money, or be held to the same standards (esp. regarding MPGe). We can speculate forever about why they withdrew, but you have to wonder if they were measuring their efficiency and realized that to compete they were going to have to drive quite slowly. Being in the demonstration division means they can drive it like a bat out of hell, dusting the other teams, but getting only 50 MPGe. For a company that makes all of it's money to date selling sports cars, it's probably an important PR consideration to always portray your vehicles as fast...