Standing on the roof of a boxy old Buick, Kevin Smith has a great view of the vast boneyard at Kertow Auto Salvage, outside Taylorville, Illinois. He's here looking for the key to America's super-fuel-efficient future. "Found it," he says to me, spying a cluster of mid- to late-'90s Dodge Neons in the middle distance. He stomps down off the trunk and, followed by three buddies, converges on 11 promising carcasses. They pick through gaping engine compartments and weedy wheel wells, searching for an intact manual transmission — its rudimentary design should be easy to fit to Smith's custom-fabricated hybrid engine. "The geometry has already been engineered," he says. "There's no need to reinvent the wheel."Watch a test-drive of the all-electric Aptera Typ-1.Junker number 10082 has exactly what Smith needs. He makes his way to the office, where a red-bearded man stands behind a beige linoleum counter: "I am with Illuminati Motor Works," declares Smith, whose day job is issuing permits for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. "We have been accepted as a competitor in an international competition to build a 100-mile-per-gallon car." With that, he haggles halfheartedly, plunks down $250 for the whole car, and agrees to haul back what the team doesn't use.It might seem strange to look for the vehicle of the future amid a field of old wrecks, but whoever wins the Automotive X Prize will have to take this kind of creative leap. Known as the AXP, the competition will award at least $10 million to the team that builds a 100-mpg machine and then wins a race against other green vehicles. Some 43 teams are already working on their rides, even though the competition won't be formally announced until early 2008. A qualifying race in 2009 will serve as a proof-of-concept shakedown, and then, in 2010, the remaining squads will go after the big money. Smith is convinced that the plug-in hybrid electric car he's building has a shot.Cars are a new arena for the X Prize Foundation, whose mission is to spur innovation by doling out cash awards to teams that solve thorny technical and engineering problems. The foundation's first purse was the $10 million Ansari X Prize for spaceflight; Burt Rutan and Paul Allen won it in 2004 when their rocket plane made it to the edge of Earth's atmosphere twice in two weeks. Then there's the Google Lunar X Prize, which will go to the first private venture to send image-transmitting rovers to the moon, and the Archon X Prize: $10 million to the first outfit that can sequence 100 human genomes in 10 days for no more than $10,000 apiece (see "The X Prize Ecosystem"). Now the "revolution through competition" model is being applied to energy and the environment with the Automotive X Prize.The aim of the AXP is to prime the market to demand cars that use less oil and produce fewer greenhouse-gas emissions. "There's a very large industrial complex married to an old solution," says X Prize Foundation founder Peter Diamandis. "If we do this right, we're going to draw a line in the sand and say all the cars we drove before this date are relegated to the history museums." Who killed the electric car? Who cares. Dangle a $10million carrot and watch as engineers deliver both crackpot schemes and genius innovations, any one of which could upend the existing automotive industry.The rules, which will be finalized later this year, have three broad components: efficiency (cars must get at least 100 miles per gallon); emissions (cars must produce less than 200 grams of greenhouse gases per mile); and economic viability (mass production of the cars has to be feasible, and the company has to have a plan to make 10,000 a year). It's this last point — that a winning vehicle has to be safe, comfortable, and ready to be mass-manufactured at a reasonable cost — that will separate the fantasy-mobiles from those that could actually be put into production and sold for a profit. "We do not want toys," says S. M. Shahed, a Honeywell corporate fellow who, as a past president of the International Society of Automotive Engineers, serves as an adviser to the AXP. In other words, a one-off, carbon-fiber-ensconced motorized recumbent bicycle isn't going to cut it.So how is a team like Illuminati, working from Smith's garage in the cornfields south of Springfield, going to compete in an arena traditionally dominated by multibillion-dollar giants? For one thing, none of the giants have announced an intent to participate. "We fully endorse the X Prize," says Bob Lutz, vice chair of General Motors, "but we just cannot divert ourselves from the business at hand." That business is the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid electric car that Lutz hopes to have on the streets by 2010. "We're really not that interested in technology as a science-fair project," he says. But GM and the other major automakers are sure to be watching carefully for interesting technologies. If a team designs, say, a clever hybrid engine that bolts right onto the transmission of a Dodge Neon, it could sell the design to Chrysler and emerge a big winner regardless of whether it does well in the race.
Modified Honda CRX HF Wins Fuel Economy Competition with 118 MPG!by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada on 09.22.09Cars & Transportation Photo: EcoModderNo Clunker Here: 20 Years Old Car Shows Us What Can be DoneSeems like the 95 MPG DIY Aerocivic has met its match! Chang Ho Kim took part in a fuel economy rally with his modified1989 Honda CRX HF, and he won with an impressive 118 MPG (over 104 miles of winding roads through the southern Adirondack mountains). In fact, his MPG score was so good - especially since it was his first time competing in a MPG rally - that the judges had to verify more than once that they hadn't made a mistake at the pump when calculating how much fuel had been used.Chang Ho Kim in his '89 Honda CRX HF. Photo: EcoModderThe other finalists were a a 1998 Geo Metro/Pontiac Firefly in #2 with 106 MPG, and a 2000 VW Jetta TDI in #3 with 90 MPG.Our friends at Ecomodder write: "The 2nd generation Honda CRX HF is a good platform for fuel economy. It's light (1830 lbs), has a small 1.5L 62 horsepower engine, and relatively tall gearing. It's rated at 41 city / 50 highway / 45 combined mpg (US) by the EPA's revised 2008 ratings."Here's a partial list of the modifications to the CRX HF * Tires: low rolling resistance 155/65/14 Nokian HakkaR snow tires, brand new for the event, pumped up to 50psi mounted on Honda 14×5 alloy wheels * Shocks: Konisport, revalved with SPSS1 valving, double adjustable, shortened body, set to soft * Springs: Ground Control coilovers with 350 front 250 rear springs. * Lowered car 2 inches, front camber at -3.5, toe set to zero front and rear, zero thrust angle * Front wind deflector and rear wheel skirts made from thin polycarbonate, aluminum duct tape, self tapping screws and 3/4″ aluminum band * masking tape to cover all panel gaps / seams, passenger door handle (forgot to do the driver side door handle) * removed passenger side mirror * I added lightness by removing the passenger seat, spare tire and tools, floor mats * 6 pound race battery.Of course, Chang's Honda isn't exactly the most practical car, with all the seams sealed off with tape (which is why the doors didn't open during the competition) and its long nose, but it shows us that no fancy hybrid technology is required to get great MPG. Weight reduction and aerodynamic improvements can go a long way on their own.Via Ecomodderhttp://ecomodder.com/blog/20-yearold-modified-honda-crx-hf-scores-118-mpg-fuel-economy-run/
