Sign Of The Times – The X Prize For Vehicles
ByIn 2004, the X PRIZE Foundation awarded $10 million to SpaceShipOne, the winning design for a two-person spacecraft that’s opened the door to space travel as a pastime for consumers, albeit very wealthy ones. In 2006, the foundation turned its sights toward clean vehicles, deciding that one of its next multimillion-dollar prizes will go to the best new design of a super-fuel-efficient vehicle. Mark Goodstein of high-tech incubator Idealab became the X PRIZE Foundation’s new executive director to lead this effort; some 50 international inventors and design teams are competing for the prize. “The X PRIZE is about changing paradigms,” says Goodstein. “The current paradigm is that it’s perfectly acceptable to drive a car that only gets 20 or 30 miles per gallon.”
The new paradigm may be hybrid, plug-in hybrid, all-electric, fuel-cell, some combination thereof, or something entirely new. There will be winners and losers in all of these sectors, with new entrants already shaking up the personal transportation industry, a trend that’s likely to continue. If innovators can figure out how to launch billionaires into space, the idea goes, what about a new, safe, fun, and dramatically better way to drive millions of families to their jobs, schools, and soccer games across the globe in ultra-efficient, low-emissions, high-performance vehicles? Now that sounds like a business opportunity.
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