Automotive X Prize: Finals race results, officials closer to naming winners

Jul 30, 2010 10:03 AM

Results are in for Tuesday's final race for the Automotive X Prize, the $10 million competition to create a viable automobile that can deliver 100 MPGe, or miles per gallon equivalent. The Li-ion Wave, a bright-green tadpole of a car run by a team of friendly, down-home North Carolina guys, is the race winner, putting them at the head of the pack to win the $2.5 million prize for the Alternative class with side-by-side seating.

Finishing that race just 0.18 seconds behind them is Finnish university team, Raceabout, with their low-slung beige sports car. Team TW4XP, a German team that sprang from the makers of the Twike, placed a distant third, more than 11 and a half minutes behind Raceabout.

The race was 50 laps around Michigan International Speedway, with a large "bus stop" chicane on the back straightaway. Cars had to maintain at least 45 mph and not exceed 70 mph, yet it was very much a race for time and efficiency.

There are two remaining teams in the class didn't finish the race. The ZAP Alias exhausted its batteries two laps before the end. And the Aptera, made by a California startup company that has been working on its electric car since 2006, suffered a breakdown 18 laps into the 100-mile race.

The teams all managed to achieve more than 100 miles per gallon equivalent during the race. TW4XP returned 138.9 MPGe, Li-ion 125, and Raceabout 100. All five cars competing in this category are electric vehicles that run only on batteries. Three of them, TW4XP, Alias, and Aptera, are three-wheelers.

There were a few penalties assessed for speed violations:

Team Li-ion received 1 penalty for driving under 45 mph
Raceabout received 2 penalties for exceeding 70 mph
TW4XP had 4 penalties for driving under 45 mph

Cars competing in the other two prize categories did not race. There is only one team left in each category and those teams both have two more-or-less identical vehicles. In the Mainstream category, competing for a $5 million prize purse, is Edison2, with two cars running on E85 ethanol. X-Tracer, a team with two enclosed electric motorcycles (with outriggers that deploy at stops) is the last team in the Alternative tandem class, for "cars" with two seats in a row.

Results from the combined performance/efficiency race:

Team/Car	Class	Race results
Edison2 #97	Mainstream	-
Edison2 #98	Mainstream	-
Li-ion Motors Wave	Alternative side-by-side	1st place
Raceabout	Alternative side-by-side	+0.18 sec.
TW4XP	Alternative side-by-side	+12 min., 37 sec.
ZAP Alias	Alternative side-by-side	-2 laps
Aptera	Alternative side-by-side	-18 laps
X-Tracer E-Tracer 7009	Alternative tandem	-
X-Tracer E-Tracer 7002	Alternative tandem	-

All of these teams will now move on to the Validation stage, where their fuel economy and emissions are retested on a stationary dynamometer at Argonne National Laboratory. If they make it through validation, with fuel economy averaging 100 MPGe or more between their on-road and lab results, they will be on track to win the X Prize.

For Edison2 and X-Tracer, they are competing only with themselves. Should they pass the Validation phase next month, they win their classes. What is less clear at this point is what team will win the Alternative side-by-side, as that will come down to the details.

The Alternative side-by-side class winner will be Li-ion, Raceabout, or TWX4P.

After analyzing the data, including assessing penalties, to determine the best in each class, the winners in each class will be announced on September 16th.

Follow our Auto X Prize coverage here in the Cars blog, as well as in our special Auto X Prize section and via Twitter @CRcars.

—Eric Evarts

See our guide to fuel economy for advice on saving gasoline. Learn about future technologies in our guide to alternative fuels.

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