The X Prize and the Futuristic Fuel Efficient Car of Tomorrow
Does it occur to you that car racing over the last couple of decades has seemed to somehow gain in importance and relevance in our sports culture? That would ordinarily be good news - if it weren't for the fact that the interest in car racing of late seems to veer towards the pointless. If it seems that way to you, you wouldn't be far off the mark. There is a saying they have in the car industry about how if you want to sell your cars on Monday, you had better have won racing those cars on Sunday. The race track has always been where car companies sent their engineers to be creative developing and testing new technologies - in the service of inventing better cars for tomorrow. Have you been seeing how of late though the participating cars on the IndyCar and NASCAR races are plastered with sponsorship decals from companies that have nothing to do with racing - soft drinks, electronics and Marlboro? With all that cash coming in, racing has long since ceased to be about building the next most fuel efficient car, the next most reliable car. It's turned into an activity that will make cars make the most noise, and win dramatically.
Just imagine what it would be like if they paid farmers to come up with the biggest tomato ever, and to earn the cash on offer, farmers and scientists put all the hybrid technology and genetic engineering at their disposal into growing the biggest? And they just stopped caring about growing tomatoes that were good to eat (actually, that may not be far from the truth either)? At the major car racing circuits these days, there is just no experimentation or novelty being exercised. Practically every engine and transmission of the circuit is the same model and it comes from the same company. But things are beginning to change - and it's the recession that's doing it - calling for better fuel efficient car technology.
That's where the Progressive Automotive X Prize comes in. While the major car companies of the world have been busy trying to cut costs by shedding entire racing divisions and all the engineers they used to have on their payroll, little independent automotive enterprises are coming in and hiring these engineers by the dozen to try to piece together again the dream that the car majors once stood for, but have now abandoned - building cars that are satisfying to drive, and are cheap and light, and are beautiful to look at.
If so many of the entries at the X Prize competition look kind of strange and "experimental", it's because we've had our openness to novelty ruined by the car majors for decades, who design cars to satisfy focus groups, and not to lead the world by innovation (think of the Chevrolet Caprice and today's Impala). The innovative super fuel-efficient car models they enter into that contest aren't necessarily electric or hybrid. And they don't require you to sacrifice on creature comforts. All they ask of you isto approach the idea of the car with an open mind, all over again. Henry Ford lamented at one time that America love its cars large and heavy for some strange reason - when size and weight are the very things that ruin speed, performance and every hope of a fuel-efficient car.
Today's innovative little car companies go by names like Edison2 and they can run on gas or E85. They have terribly futuristic-looking shapes, and the irresistible appeal of their looks is what they hope will make customers actually buy them. How do they achieve their fuel efficiency? They go back to the drawing board, and the design every last washer, screw and nut to be very light and yet be very strong (the transmission is something you could hold up with your pinky).The tires are not standard vulcanized rubber - they come from Japan, and are made of recycled orange peel (a few big-name hybrids from Japan use these too). They help bu being low in road-resistance. A few models like the Tango go electric too, without sacrificing on performance or comfort. The sensible and fuel efficient car of the future unfortunately, don't come to us from the major automotive houses we've always respected. They come from the garage experimenter, the boy with the dream. And for society to follow the lead of the garage experimenter over the major corporation is in the best traditions of the culture.