Just got an email from the Automotive X Prize Mailing list, giving an update on their status. According to them they have about 30 teams signed up already for the event.
- Aptera Motors – California, USA
- Commuter Cars Corp. – Washington, USA
- Cornell University – New York, USA
- DEHyds – Washington, USA
- Delta Motorsport – Northants, UK
- Desert Fuel – Arizona, USA
- Disruptech – California, USA
- Dragonfly Technology LTD – Northhampton, UK
- Fuel Vapor Technologies – British Columbia, Canada
- GreenIt! – Oregon, USA
- Herf Duo – Berlin, Germany
- HyKinesys – California, USA
- Kinetic Vehicles – Oregon, USA
- Kuttner Doran Inventions – Virginia, USA
- Loremo AG – Munich, Germany
- Maine Automotive X – Maine, USA
- MDI, Inc. & Zero Pollution Motors LLC – New York, USA
- Michigan Vision – Michigan, USA
- MotoTron Corporation – Wisconsin, USA
- Phoenix Motorcars – California, USA
- Porteon Electric Vehicles, Inc. – Oregon, USA
- Prometheus Systems, LLC – Arizona, USA
- Psycho-Active – Georgia, USA
- Roane Inventions – Texas, USA
- Society for Sustainable Mobility – California, USA
- Spirit One – Alberta, Canada
- Tesla Motors – California, USA
- Valentin Technologies – Wisconsin, USA
- Velozzi – California, USA
- X Tracer – Winterthur, Switzerland
- ZAP Motors – California, US
Looking at this lists I see an all-world cast of players with the USA having a clear majority of entrants. Making the chances for an American team to take home the prize very high.
The first X-Prize, which was for the development of commercial space flight (flight at the edge of space), was also won by an American Team: Mojave Aerospace Ventures. This team was headed by Burt Rutan and funded by Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft.
The Goal of the Automotive X-Prize:
To stimulate automotive technology, manufacturing and marketing breakthroughs that:
- Radically reduce oil consumption and harmful emissions
- Result in a new generation of super-efficient and desirable mainstream vehicles that people want to buy
