Thoughts On The X Prize

Now that we have completed the Shakedown stage and are back in our Lynchburg shop, here are a few thoughts about the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize.

No one said this would be easy and it is not. As Oliver noted, if it was easy the big auto manufacturers would have already done it. But the X Prize competition is exciting and important and we are very glad to be part of it.  

By now we have seen many of the other teams and cars. The overall standard of our competitors is high. Everyone has put their heart and soul into this and it shows. There are a lot of different approaches to this problem of extreme efficiency, and some real surprises.  Who would have thought the Illumnati Seven car would be the fastest through the lane change test, or that the Aptera would need 40 tries?

The competition is demanding but fair. The X Prize has an impressive array of experts and it is rigorous, as it should be. Just as making a 100mpg car is new to all of the teams, running this efficiency competition is new to the X Prize folks. They are doing a good job of expecting a lot yet being reasonable, and the process is a good one.  

The Very Light Car turns heads, and on a closer look impresses people: stunning is the word that automotive writer Ronald Ahrens used. We feel very good about the approach we have taken and where we are. All four of our cars move on to the Knockout stage. At the Shakedown we did almost 85 mpg (on the EPA cycle that reduced the Prius from 60 to 45) and we can improve this with better mapping and better launches: we have yet to finalize gearing and clutches. We see 100+ MPG as clearly obtainable.

The Knockout stage starts June 20. Follow us on this blog and our Edison2 facebook page.



Auto X Prize Notebook

Veteran auto journalist Ronald Ahrens's blog "Auto X Prize Notebook" is reprinted here with permission.

Last week’s initial shakedown stage of the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize has left me with three primary impressions:

Tango electric: nearly 2000 lb of batteries under the floor.

1) The Edison2 Very Light Car is stunning.

2) Many of the commercially produced electric vehicles are probably just participating as a way of advertising their brands. The Aptera 2e, a limpet-like three-wheeler, needed 40 attempts to pass the 45-mph slalom course. The Consumers Union official supervising the slalom station said it wouldn’t have surprised him to see a three-wheeler roll over here.

3) The laptop unambiguously rules in this automotive competition.

Official Welcome: The Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize is “a great opportunity to highlight Michigan’s automotive leadership,” said Greg Main, president and CEO of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. The X Prize “fits with the strategy to diversify Michigan and to diversify the auto industry.”

Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation, explained that the concept for the Automotive X Prize competition started five years ago. The initial entry of 125 cars from 30 countries and 25 states was winnowed to 28 teams and 36 cars in two classes. He said he’s “extraordinarily proud that we’re helping to bring to market a new generation of viable cars.” The important aspect of the X Prize occurs after the $10 million in prize money is distributed to winners, when he looks around and asks: “How have we changed the paradigm?”

Governor Jennifer Granholm held forth about Michigan becoming the leader in advanced battery technology. She made her pitch that X Prize entrants should build the commercialized versions of their cars here. In other words, if the federal and state governments keep pouring money down a rat hole long enough, a couple of idle plants like the Olds factory just a few blocks down Walnut Street could go back to work after leaders have granted enormous concessions.

Most Surprising Revelation: Al Unser, Jr. will drive the factory-entered Zap Alias three-wheeler in competition. Maybe the fat Hoosier dirt tire on the rear of the Alias displayed at the state capitol should have clued me in: this could be his Pike’s Peak ride, too. Junior appeared at Zap’s NADA stand in February. He’ll likely be the only driver who’s won a race at MIS.

Memorable Quote: Gary Starr, of Zap Electric Vehicles, speaking on affordable production models:

“There’s only a few people that are going to buy expensive things if they’re green.”

(Maybe it should’ve been, “There’s only a few people that are going to buy green things if they’re expensive.”

Gov. Granholm to X Prize boss Diamandis: "You know that I can see Canada from my backyard." (Winning caption submitted by Andy Singer.)

Uncertain Status: Martin Möscheid was fuming about the Icelandic volcano. Eyjafjallajökull’s ash cloud had caused such a backup of air cargo out of Frankfurt that his team’s entry was covered up in the garage at Rosenthal, Hessen. He’d been told not even to bring it to the airport. The Project TW4XP Twike, an extended-range-hybrid three-wheeler, wouldn’t be present, as scheduled, for the second group’s shakedown run May 5 and 6. By special arrangement, the team will be allowed to certify the Twike (“Twin Bike”) in the three-day period before the first knockout stage begins the third week of June.

Wow Factor: The Edison2 Very Light Car is an impressive effort. The team led by Oliver Kuttner is exceptionally well-organized. Kuttner wrote in his blog that the team arrived from Lynchburg, Virginia, with just ninety minutes to spare before the first shakedown session. Spokesman David Brown said everybody was really tired.

The team has four cars, each with a frame of steel tubing. The first was built with metal bodywork while the other three have carbon-fiber bodies made in Columbus, Ohio. The carbon-fiber cars weigh in at 750 lb.

Power in two of the entries comes from a rear-mounted, turbocharged 250-cc Yamaha single-cylinder engine that runs on E85. These engines were done right here in Ann Arbor at David Finch’s Raetech Corporation engineering firm. (The other two cars have slightly different powerplants that were built in Utah.) Finch told me his staff of eight to 10 engineers, many with degrees from the University of Michigan, designed the turbocharger in-house.

The alcohol fuel is “most effective in very, very high-performance engines,” he said. “We can run a lot of static compression.”

Alien takeover: Very Light Car visits the Michigan Capitol.

Indeed, the 15.0:1 ratio is high. There’s also a heavy emphasis on exhaust-gas recirculation, which helps to reduce emissions. Pumping losses are diminished because the throttle is generally wide open. The turbo allows for a variable output, but this is limited to 40 hp.

 “We may bring it down,” Finch said, depending on where the sweet spot in efficiency is found.

A charmingly earnest little buzz comes out the back of the Very Light Car. Power is managed with a six-speed transmission created by EMCO Gears. Because sports-racing veteran Emanuele Pirro drives the Very Light Car, manual selection is a given.

Brown said the Edison2 team is here on a mission. “Win or not, we feel [with] the innovations we have, we have something to offer the automobile industry. We like to think what we’re doing is very feasible.”

One of the team’s design ethics is to base the whole effort on readily available materials. (The carbon bodywork is race-only trim, and it’s unsustainable in high volume, not only because of the cost and the long process required to cure the material, but also because of the amount of energy consumed in the process.) Steel is already the auto industry’s basis, so why not use it for the chassis? Electric vehicles are loved by politicians and environmentalists, but to win the X Prize, the Edison2 team decided to take to the extreme Colin Chapman’s maxim to “Build in lightness.” (At one point, Kuttner handed me an aluminum lug nut weighing around two-tenths of an ounce.) Batteries and electric motors would make the car Not Very Light.

Instead, the Very Light Car is breathtakingly sleek. Chief of Aerodynamics Barnaby Wainfan designed an honest and uncompromised fuselage that’s somewhat boattailed. If not for the faired-in—I dare say cloistered—15-inch wheels and Continental EcoContact EP 145/65 R15 tires, this little ship would look at home under the wing of a B-52 before a mid-air launch in the quest for an altitude record. Kuttner says the coefficient of drag is officially 0.15. Off the record, he names an even lower figure that is very close to the Dow Divisor of October 2005. Having just a few days earlier read in Automobile Magazine that the incredible Porsche 918 “is expected to check out of the wind tunnel at 0.34,” I felt hairs raise up on my neck. The Porsche was born with elephantiasis!

Setting the wheels so far out required some packaging solutions. Kuttner proudly shows off the front suspension, which represents the opposite of the inboard-mounted springs and shocks of a Formula One car. The Very Light Car incorporates a patented in-wheel suspension. Inside the back part of the wheel, a spindle and a small coil spring do business along side the brake rotor and single-puck caliper. Kuttner restrains his pride in announcing that the patented unit weighs 6.5 pounds.

“I suspect it’s worth more than the X Prize,” he says. “I think this is the game-changing thing.”

The Very Light Car finishes the 45-mph slalom course at MIS.

He says it produces the geometric characteristics of a double-wishbone arrangement. An ancillary benefit of the in-wheel suspension is that the front of the fuselage is free for luggage and crash protection. The rear suspension is a sort of torque tube arrangement shrouding the rear axle, and a single coil spring acts against it, forcing it down and away when under load.

“We’re very careful about where to put the forces,” Kuttner says.

Whether it’ll hold up on Michigan roads will be determined during the first Automotive X Prize knockout rounds later in June. But I’d have to rate this well-conceived entry a favorite for the overall win.



Greetings From the Shakedown

This Edison2 team was driven right against the breaking point when getting the cars ready.  It was the most impressive effort I have ever been part of.  There were stressed moments but we never dropped the ball. The cars were in Michigan at the prescribed time by a margin of 90 minutes, following a relentless effort in the Lynchburg shop.

We are in the second day of the X Prize Shakedown stage; half of 28 teams remaining in the competition are with us at the Michigan International Speedway this week, the other half come next week.  Yesterday and today was spent with our 4 cars undergoing technical inspections (yes, 4 cars; other teams have one or two; we are entered in all 3 classes, with 2 vehicles in the mainstream class).

Our cars made it through tech on all the important safety issues.  More evaluations for the rest of the week, with time on the track. Getting 100 mpg is difficult and will become clear as in my opinion only a few teams have a realistic chance of success.  The lesson of pure efficiency - the message of low mass and good aerodynamics - will sound loud and clear.

There are an impressive array of specific solutions here: some very nice electric car installations and some very heroic combinations of different approaches.  However, the hurdles are set high and only the very careful and very well executed solution will stand the test of this X Prize.

There is a reason why the big automobile manufacturers have not done it.  It is really hard to do…

Oliver



The Theory Behind the Very Light Car

 Edison2 took a close look at the interplay between weight, drag, regenerative braking and acceleration before deciding on a conventional power source for the Very Light Car. Our examination demonstrated the key importance of low weight and low aerodynamic drag in automotive efficiency, and led us away from a hybrid or electric drivetrain.

Here is a graph showing power requirements for a Prius on the EPA city cycle. The specially written Edison2 software behind it is part of what allowed us to explore in detail the benefits and consequences of different drivetrain philosophies. The key think shown in this graph is that the Prius - by conventional standards aerodynamically "slippery" - takes appreciable power to overcome its drag. This energy is not available to regenerate: it's gone.

Further, Edison2's analysis of the EPA city cycle for a spread of vehicle attributes demonstrated that the benefits of regenerative braking are, at best, mixed. A hybrid vehicle squanders much of the recovered energy accelerating the equipment required to do the recovery. In fact, only in a narrow set of circumstances can the help from a hybrid drive overcome the weight and cost disadvantages of batteries and electric motor. Pure electric vehicles fare worse because their batteries are necessarily even larger and heavier.

This is illustrated below in a graph showing the energy consumption of varying the weight of a Prius while holding aero drag constant. The graph is best read horizontally: a 3000 lb hybrid Prius with regeneration is not mare efficient than the same car weighing 2000 lbs without the hybrid drive. Other conclusions that can be drawn include 1) there is less energy available to regenerate in a light car because less has been spent accelerating it 2) As weight shrinks, the benefit of regenerative braking becomes vanishingly small and 3) A 5000 lb SUV is a good candidate for a hybrid drive but no matter how good the hybrid system, it will still drink fuel.

In the Very Light Car we have an unprecedented combination of low weight and low aerodynamic drag. Our theoretical work told us this approach is the most efficient, and so far our testing is validating the theory, expressed in the following chart.

This graph is based on published car weights and manufacturers claimed drag coefficients. Edison2's Very Light Car goes about 5 times as far on the same amount of energy as a Chevy Tahoe and more than twice as far as a Prius. Aptera comes close, but faces serious limitations on range per charge and has only 2 seats.

The X Prize events begin at the Michigan International Speedway on April 26 with the Shakedown stage, followed by the Knockout stage in June and the Finals in July. Some cars are electric, some are hybrid, and a few are internal combustion. Soon we will find out just how successful the various approaches to auto efficiency are.

Less is More

An important concept at Edison2 is "less is more".

Less mass to push around in the Very Light Car means more efficiency. The Very Light Car is extremely light. To avoid the hundreds of pounds of batteries needed for an electric or hybrid vehicle, Edison2 chose a conventional power source for the Very Light Car: a one-cylinder, 250cc internal combustion engine running on E85.

Lower mass also means fewer material inputs, which results in more economy. Costs of production are decreased, especially with our emphasis on mainstream materials – a chassis of reusable aluminum and steel instead of energy-intensive and expensive carbon fiber. Avoiding batteries as an energy source also avoids a perhaps $10,000 battery pack (with a 7-year or so replacement). Currently most cars in the US cost about $6 per pound, ranging up to $18 per pound for luxury models. The Very Light Car will tip the scales at less than 1000 lbs.

Lower costs means more affordability. We expect a production model of the Very Light Car to retail under $20,000. The X Prize is pushing for major breakthroughs in auto efficiency that can dramatically impact car-related energy consumption. A dramatic effect can occur easier and faster with $20,000 cars than with $50,000 cars.

Less mass, less energy consumption and less use of exotic and hazardous materials also means more sustainability. The Very Light Car uses fewer raw materials, with an emphasis on recyclable aluminum and steel. Less energy is needed in production and less energy is used while driving. The result is a dramatically lower carbon footprint.

The Very Light Car: a study in less is more.