Bump for a good thread & book. The following are my opinion, IMO, YMMV, etc.
Jason's book tells a story about who we are, what we can do, and what isn't getting done by those we trust. It's about making something that you believe in, that you believe matters and can make a difference. And within that story is another, about the truths the Xprize revealed.
Like my time at Xprize, I didn't want the book to end. Call me crazy, but I want the "Xprize story" to live on.
In a way, it is. Now it's "Xprize" for US automakers, but instead of 3 years to hit MPG/CO2 targets, they have 13 (EPA/NHTSA announced 2025 targets in 2012).
Xprize winners and many of the finalists embraced the truth -- to achieve high-MPG, basic vehicle architecture has to change; if you bolt new tech onto legacy architecture, you lose. This was perhaps the greatest truth to come out of the Xprize and one of the many reasons for reading this book.
Automakers are not embracing that truth. For mass-production, they're bolting new tech onto legacy architecture and convincing themselves they're not going to lose 2025. It's a delusion, and there's much to lose; you can't bolt the future onto the bones of the past and magically create
affordable, high-MPG vehicles.
Some Ecomodders may disagree with that, but Xprize and this book reveal the harsh reality of tough, real-world driving cycles. There's a reason contenders with legacy OEM chassis were so easily vanquished, and why, beyond tech failures, those with previous efficiency victories fell like dominos. It's all in the book
These lessons and more came out of the Xprize. The Xprize changed how I see things. I swear sometimes I feel like the boy who sees dead people…LOL
skip 25 seconds in
In the new reality of mobile source CO2 regulation, people and automakers see only what they want to see; they don't know their cars are dead.
Every day, across the planet, people encase themselves in vehicular fossils, clueless that under the newest sweeping facade, the latest digital bling lie the bones of a refined relic from a bygone era -- decades-old suspension/chassis design -- a sarcophagus that will never take them, or automakers, to an affordable, high-MPG future.
The Xprize revealed that disturbing truth. The sooner we embrace it by re-designing vehicle architecture, refining our innovations and creating a new pedigree of affordable, hyper-efficient vehicles, the sooner we arrive at a more sustainable future.