Innovation: 100-mpg car contest under starters orders

clipped from www.newscientist.com Last night in California a list of 111 teams was announced – one of which may hold the key to motoring's green future. They are the registered entrants to the Progressive Auto X Prize, a contest that will award prizes totalling $10 million for vehicles that can go 100 miles on the energy equivalent to that in a gallon of fuel. Notable by their absence were the world's largest car manufacturers – bar Indian firm Tata – who don't seem interested in taking part. The list is varied spanning slick Californian start-ups with electric cars, to less-refined backyard efforts still finalising their designs. See a gallery of some of the vehicles entered into the Auto X Prize But you can be sure that the auto giants will be closely watching the progress of entrants through the design judging and performance testing phases planned for this year, as well as the race events scheduled to start in 2010.