[NeilBlanchard]

As far as I know, the Aptera is still in the running. They had overheating problems under the hood, and apparently had transmission issues during the penalty lap.

The Global-E car was much more interesting than I originally thought: it was a Prius floor pan and drive train, with a Celica roof grafted on, and their own bodywork. They used a 22kWh battery pack (IIRC) in *place* of the stock Prius battery, and they changed the software to get this to work. Their DQ resulted from a ignition mapping error that kept the ICE in startup mode, so it ran too rich.

One of their team members is going to try and help me get the CarBEN 3D model translated into CATIA or SolidWorks, so we can do CFD.

Both the Edison2 mainstream cars are virtually the same (as is the tandem #95): they both have steel tube chassis, and carbon fiber panels and doors. The biggest differences were in the cooling systems -- they wanted to test variations, and the one with the largest radiator and a larger electric cooling assist fan was the best performing. They will be making this and other improvements to both cars. The only fiberglass body Edison2 car was the #96 side-by-side one (painted silver), that is out of the competition -- it was the only car that had a mid-engine layout. It was the oldest version of the VLC chassis -- the three remaining cars are all rear-engine layouts; but they all use the same basic 250cc Yamaha engine.

The other differences between the three remaining Edison2 cars is the "chrome" vinyl membrane -- the all black (carbon) car was much hotter inside, and the full coverage one was the best.

The WSU car was also very interesting: it had an Insight 1 drivetrain, as well as an electric drivetrain -- so it was a "hybrid-hybrid". Their EV drivetrain is capable of 60-70 miles range, so, they use it first. Then the Insight engine is used, along with it's IMA. They had a really complicated job keeping all three systems working and in balance.

The Spira uses a 500cc 2-cylinder Kawasaki (from the EX-500?) with it's swing arm on the right rear wheel. The left rear has just a swing arm, so there are FOUR rear shocks and springs. While this vehicle looks hokey, it actually performed really well, and it is the lightest one in the competition, and it would be the least expensive to build. They are looking at the Asian market, I'm pretty sure.