100 MPG X-Prize
It’s no secret that those of us here at Really Rocket Science were big fans of the original X Prize and the X Prize Foundation.
For the uninitiated, the original Ansari X Prize, according to Wikipedia:
… was a space competition in which the X PRIZE Foundation offered a US$10,000,000 prize for the first non-government organization to launch a reusable manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. It was modelled after early 20th-century aviation prizes, and aimed to spur development of low-cost spaceflight. The prize was won on October 4, 2004, the 47th anniversary of the Sputnik 1 launch, by the Tier One project using the experimental spaceplane SpaceShipOne.
How could we not be obsessed with such a competition? Not only did the winning craft give us an opportunity to rekindle our long-held admiration for the aerospace designs of Burt Rutan — but the prize helped launch the X-Prize Cup and our beloved X-Racers.
The second X Prize, the Archon X Prize, is "$10 million for the first non-governmental organization to sequence the complete genomes of 100 humans in 10 days time."
And now, in accord with our obsession with speed and technology, comes the Automotive X Prize.
From the website:
People love their cars. They are vital links to our jobs, our community, ourselves. For everything we love about them, cars are chained to the most severe global crises of our time: oil dependence and climate change.
We aim to break this deadlock through the most radical approach to innovation yet – the X PRIZE.
The Automotive X PRIZE will invite teams from around the world to focus on a single goal: design viable, clean and super-efficient cars that people want to buy.
This will be a race for the ages, with major publicity and a big sack of cash waiting for the champion, and perhaps our future hanging in the balance.
How’s that for gripping PR copy? It sure makes us want to channel our inner De Lorean and get to work. (Guidelines for entry can be found here.)
We’ll be keeping you up to date on the progress (and cool designs) of the Automotive X Prize as well as future X Prizes in other fields and technologies. Becuase we, too, believe in "revolution through competition." And one never knows what form of locomotion the winning design might use.
