Progressive X-Prize Finals at Michigan Speedway

PROGRESSIVE X-PRIZE FINALS AT MIS
By Steve Purdy
TheAutoChannel.com
Detroit Bureau

Kevin Smith, Nathan Knappenburger from Cincinnati and their pals sat in the shade of a large tent in the center of the pit garages at Michigan International Speedway trying to keep out of the intense sun but ready to chat with anyone showing an interest in their odd-looking, electric car. The Progressive X Prize competition was winding down and, while they were out of the competition, they had come farther than even they could have imagined.

Their team is called Illuminati and the car looks like it has the nose of an old Porsche 356 mated to the tail of an exaggerated Tatra, or perhaps a Tucker. It is an entirely hand-built, seat-of-the-pants entry in the four-seat “Mainstream” class of this $10-million competition to see who can build the best car that gets at least 100-mpg or more. They got to the finals in their car called Seven.

With just a few criteria left to meet the Mainstream Class has a presumptive winner with well-funded, professional Edison2 team having the last two vehicles standing. Theirs, too, are purpose built and designed for this competition, but they were done by some of the most talented and experienced racecar builders in the business. The Edison2 cars are beautifully finished and professionally presented in every way – stark contrast to the guys across the paddock referenced above.

Money was no object for the Edison2 team led by Oliver Kuttner. Al Unser, Jr drove the car in one of the early competitions and F1 driver, Emanual Pirro, drove in this final track event at MIS. Pirro insisted that this was a much greater challenge than one would expect. The Edison2 cars, by the way, are powered by liquid fuel (E85) not electric like most of the competitors.

Two other classes round out this three-year long competition. Called Alternative Classes, one of these is for tandem two-seaters and the other for side-by-side two-seaters.

In the tandem two-seat category the only team left has two cars, one electric-powered and the other powered by a BMW 1200-cc motorcycle engine, both developed by a Swiss team called X-Tracer. The vehicles themselves are essentially BMW motorcycle chassis with enclosed bodies and tiny outrigger wheels that extend for stability.

My favorite little tandem two-seater is out of the competition. That’s the cute orange Tango from Washington State. It’s pure electric, so narrow it can skitter between lanes on a clogged freeway, and with all the batteries mounted below the line defining the bottom of the doors it can’t be tipped over. The Tango is in production now so is not dependent on the X-Prize competition.

The final stage of competition involves dyno testing at Argon Labs. The X-Prize cars will go through the same types of testing done on the cars we’re driving today. That testing will just verify the mileage numbers already achieved.

In the beginning there were 111 cars in the X-Prize competition, and now only a handful remain. The winner in the Mainstream Class gets $5-million and each of the Alternative Class winners gets $2.5-million.

The winners will be formally announced at a gala event in New York in mid September.