BOOK: Ingenious: Behind the scenes of the Auto X-Prize.
 

Ingenious: A True Story of Invention, Automotive Daring, and the Race to Revive America
By Jason Fagone,
Ingenious: A True Story of Invention, Automotive Daring, and the Race to Revive America: Jason Fagone: 9780307591487: Amazon.com: Books
http://www.jasonfagone.com/images/ingenious_300.jpg

I read some excerpts on Amazon, and the book is fantastic! A real candid look behind the Xprize and several teams. It's hilarious, informative and everything i wanted to know. The Edison2 engineers are particularly noteworthy. It looks like he was embedded with several teams, Edison2, Aptera, West Philly, and Illuminati motor works. It's a really important record of events not seen in press releases.

Here's a great interview about the that describes it better than i can: http://www.motherjones.com/media/201...s-book-x-prize

Jason is going on tour to the North East this winter with Illuminati's 200mpge "Seven" electric car. I'm thinking about going to the New York stop this December. They're offering rides in their prototype electric car along with the book presentation. If you have a good place where they can make a stop, Virginia to Boston, send them a message on the blog. Their currently looking for places to visit.

http://www.jasonfagone.com/2013/10/22/need-your-help/
http://www.instablogsimages.com/imag...2_WIxwZ_69.jpg

I went to B&N tonight, but it is not out yet. I'm looking forward to reading it!

It's out Nov 5th. You can read a lot of the pages on Amazons preview. I also pre-ordered a copy.

I forgot to ask you about your impression of the Edison2 VLC when i went to see your CarBen. I did meet a guy who did design work on the Aptera in an unrelated event. He had a chance to take the Aptera for a spin, but didn't. Didn't want to crash a million dollar prototype!

True genius would be to have a result of the competition on the showroom floors ...
We'll see if any of these cars or spin-offs ever make it that far.

Press and people alike quickly get tired of messages of high hopes in far away futures.

Here are new photos of the Illuminati Motor Works 'Seven' with the new, sleeker body panels:

http://illuminatimotorworks.com/wp-c...-080413-04.jpg
(click on image for link)

Edison2 has been hard at work on a v4 version of their Very Light Car:

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...2-a-24844.html

These are the two cars that competed for the mainstream class at the X-Prize - which is the most important class. The two seat classes (tandem and side-by-side) are much less likely to ever enter large volume production.

To expect that the X-Prize should have already resulted in a production car is expecting too much, in my opinion. But also remember that we *have* see electric cars enter production, and the Tesla would likely have won the X-Prize, if it had been entered. 'Seven' would have walked away with the top prize if they had not used a clutch. It is rated at 207MPGe and has a range over 200 miles with a ~33kWh battery pack - a bit more than half the capacity of the 200 mile Model S, which has a 60kWh pack.

I briefly meet Jason Fangone at the X-Prize Knockout Round, and I wish I had more time to talk with him. I'm looking forward to reading his book, and hearing what he says about this whole process.

Is it really ?

The goal and selection criteria was to have a production-capable vehicle.

http://www.progressiveautoxprize.org...ines_V_1.3.pdf

A ten million dollar cash purse will be awarded to the teams that win a long-distance stage race for clean, production-capable vehicles that exceed 100 miles-per-gallon energy equivalent (MPGe – see below). Both new vehicles and modifications of existing vehicles may enter.


I guess I've seen the Loremo story happen a bit too often.
They had a running prototype, then all went downhill. Fast.

I had a very good response till my browser deleted it. Short answer is it's in book why. It comes down to there not being any funding from the Big 5, entrepenuers, or the AVTM government loan. A very long list of startups have failed because they couldn't get any money. Edison2 still survives while others don't because it hasn't fallen into those pit traps.

The Xprize did what it intended to. It spurred the research and development of production capable high mpg cars. NONE of the numerous contestants who entered had the capitol or infrastructure to mass produce a car. None of them. There are many production capable designs now, just no one to mass produce them.

Here's an excerpt from the book.

Think You Could Build a Sweet 100 MPG Vehicle in 2 Years? (These Guys Did.) | Mother Jones

It's a great read so far. Go buy it!

First time i've bought a physical book since Harry Potter...

I got an Email back and it sounds like Jason is interested in attending the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair in central Wisconsin, said he might even be able to get the Illuminati Motor Works 'Seven' there.

I just finished reading it. (I got my hands on an advance copy!)

It's really a good read. One of those recent histories that almost reads like a novel. Imagine a book version of WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR, only about the X-Prize.

I did a little review HERE.

You don't really believe they'd fund a competitor ?
Or fund / build a design that'd compete with the low-end designs that they've already invested in - either existing or in the pipe-line ?

Stage 1 : Loremo had money.
Aptera had money.
Stage 2 : Both had running prototypes .
Stage 3 : Both decided they'd start on a next, improved version ... and ran out of $$$. Stage 4.

Unless you produce, you're not going to make any money.
Unless you're heading for production, the influx of money WILL dry up.

Venture / Risk capitalists want to see progress or returns, and stop supporting stagnant start-ups. They'll count their losses and move out rather than dump in more dosh. Better luck next time.

I'd like to be proven wrong, but I think different.

IMO , Edison2 is between stage 3 and 4. Heading for broke.


In the US maybe.
In Europe we've had a - no, make that 2 ! - 3L car(s) since before the turn of the millennium.
[The latest but bigger Golf VII TDi 1.6L will just about match that fuel consumption.]

Vekke turned one into a 2L car - alone, unfunded, in 1.5 years.
His weight-savings (by stripping the car, the poor man's alternative to composites to prove the concept) can be matched or bettered by using composite materials (other than carbon fibre) instead of steel and glass.

VW raised the bar to 1L - and will actually produce the car, even if few will be able to buy one.



How many had a finalised design ?
How would you build it if the design isn't finalised ?

All big car companies started making cars from scratch - in a period where cars were far from a commodity tool, with few takers who could afford one.
Put it on sale and see if it gets bought and can make you a profit.
Nothing different from today, really.


Ahhh well, I'm off to read the book :)

That opinion is only strengthened after reading Ingenious.

For those with wallets that aren't quite as stuffed, VW will produce the Twin up! - a TDi hybrid.

http://www.autoblog.com/2013/11/08/v...twin-up-tokyo/

Makes you wonder why they won't make a TDi up! without all the fuss though ... in diesel operation it uses as much fuel as the 3L Lupo 15 years before it, partly due to having to haul about the batteries and electric engine.


It's quite well written, feels like you're being up close to the action and the people.
Keeps you entertained and wanting to read on.

The glaring spelling errors detract a bit from it though.


But it leaves you with quite a depressing feeling when you reach the acknowledgements without anything substantial having come from the entire Automotive X-prize affair ...

IMO, simply nothing will come from it.

Only the E-tracer and LiIon really won.
You can buy the E-Tracer at a ridiculous price - think 82000 euro and above ... before any taxers, that's 110.000 USD .
About the price of a VW XL1 ...
It's NOT going to transform motoring, that's for sure.

Li-Ion ???
Anyone heard anything about them lately ?


The Loremo / Dino scenario is looming.
Dropping oil prices ain't going to help.

Preston Tucker. Bucky Fuller. Teh perfect is the enemy of the good.

I will judge Edison2 a success if they ship their in-wheel suspension as an aftermarket part. I like Edison2 best because Oliver Kuttner gets a twinkle in his eye when he says 'motorsports'.

Well nothing good will come from arguing either way. So i'll agree to disagree.

LiIon's WaveII was available on their website last i checked. It looks like it hasn't progressed beyond the prototype, and none have been made or sold. They mostly sell conversions. I wouldn't bank on them ever selling the WaveII. They don't have a good reputation, and were in it only for the money.

Jason Fagone was on Wisconsin Public Radio yesterday on their afternoon talk magazine program.

You can listen to this 16 minute segment on WPR's web page.
Listen | Wisconsin Public Radio

I finished reading Ingenious last week. It is very well written and edited - it feels like a book documentary, and it leaves you wanting more details. And I want to continue the conversation about all the various issues and concepts.

The X-Prize was far from perfect. I think they should have stayed FAR away from the detailed requirements, like a CAN bus, and a business plan, and the race in umpteen different places idea.

There are several people that I know of who would have loved to have been there, and we need to have a large variety of concepts and much more imaginative and innovative, and more exciting cars in the mix. If we had the Dolphin and The Zing! and as many more cars like that as we had conversions and tweaked Prii - then we would have gotten more out of the X-Prize.

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
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUYKSWQmkrg&feature=youtu.be&t=24s

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.

If it has any decent photos of the FourSight "4 seater insight" I would like to get the book since that has always been something I have wanted to create.

Reality check : it WON'T happen anytime soon.
IMO, it won't happen at all.

Joe Average hardly wants to get into more sensibly sized Euro or Jap cars.

What makes you think the US consumer - yeah, some generalisation if there ever was one - will jump out of his monster truck / SUV and into that redesigned, cramped new architecture , or into rearward facing seats ?


Looking back, just about all start-ups that were about to bring the next radically new automotive breakthrough and coupled it with an equally radically new design, have failed miserably.


The traditional car shape has some serious advantages - hence it's no surprise that it came about.

There's also lots of unused improvement left in the traditional car.
Reducing weight being a no-brainer for the future - not the current miserable 10-60 kg, but more like 200-500 kg depending on car size.

What Joe average wants is taught to him and based on what he can afford, as soon as one or both changes there will be a lot of arm flailing, like the leaf haters or prior prius haters, after a while though it will slowly penetrate the market,
So long as the big auto makers don't offer alternative transport however the pace of change will continue to be very slow.

It's a shame we never got a chance to meet, especially since I live barely more than 2.5 hours away in Williamsburg Va. We pursued different pathways to the same goal. The difference is mine was focused on powertrains, based on the documents produced by the DOE, Ford and the University of Michigan as well as Eaton Corp. They predicted using a hydraulic hybrid configuration, you could realize an 80% increase in mileage without any modifications to the vehicle architecture other than a smaller diesel engine. They produced a 3800 pound prototype that got 80 MPG on the EPA test cycle, with no aero improvements whatsoever.

Any further improvements in powerplant or aerodynamics would be enhanced by a proper HH powertrain and the system could be easily and cost effectively incorporated into existing vehicle architecture which is the pathway the major mahufcturers will take, since their priorities are profits and survival.

They will wait for your innovation to age until they have to pay nothing for your designs. Then they will incorporate those designs into their vehicles over decades when they are convinced there are minimal liability concerns. They smash up more money than we will ever see just to pass crash testing standards.

My patent will expire in 14 years, but there will be a chain of patented improvements of the original design as well as operational software for integration into abs and traction control systems. As small developers who have not concentrated our innovations we will be rendered insignificant by the giant car manufacturers since they think long term over decades.

Nobody wants to even think about challenging the auto giants directly, but I think that attitude is short sighted since there are new arrivals to the manufacturing community who will be more interested in real design improvements. In the meantime I will build my own operational vehicle. I wish you luck in the future.

regards
Mech

It doesn't. I've looked for it, and i've never seen a picture of it anywhere. Your best bet is to try to contact the people who (attempted?) to build it.

The book only has about 8 or so pictures which is unfortunate. How all those cars looked is as much a part of the story as anything. I would have like to have seen visual profile of all the teams.

In a way like others have said, the book really isn't about the Xprize at all. The Xprize is really just the context behind it.

I've had some thoughts that 'extreme' efficiency in itself isn't that important. But with electric cars, any aerodynamic efficiency means more range at less battery cost. The mainstream class required 100mpge with 200+ miles of range if i'm correct, which is why you had so many two seater electric vehicles make it to the end of the "side by side" class where they only had to do 100 miles or so. Batteries are really heavy for 200+ mile of range.

If you think electric cars are inevitable, the mainstream class was kind of like the diagram for the perfect electric car. People want 300 miles of range, 4 seats, at a low price. Thats the tipping point for average Joe to buy electric vs gas. For electric cars to become 'mainstream.'

Well batteries will get lighter while prices will lower and gas prices rise. But aerodynamic efficiency is a 2-3X factor of improvement than can be achieved NOW without waiting for batteries to mature.

That's the unavoidable conspiracy theorist's explanation :D

It's tough to advertise cheaper cars in a geographically huge market, especially when they sell in few quantities.
Car mags like the high powered, over-specced cars best - of course, their journalists don't pay for them, nor for the fuel.
It's not that much different over here.


There used to be a market in the US for Metros, civics, and the like, but it seems to have evaporated.
As a result you most often won't get the real fuel sipper versions - if a model is brought over at all - but you get the highest-powered versions instead which are of course, less efficient.



That's what I was saying - both cars look odd / different / plain $h!t€ , with the Leaf looking particularly odd & ugly (small wonder, as Nissan also has the Puke in its line-up) though not particularly über-efficient.
The Prius looks most normal of the 2 now, but the first and second Prius were ugly ducklings.

Put an ingenious drivetrain in a bad or odd looking car, and chances are HUGE it won't sell.


Why would they need to offer "alternative" transport if it won't sell ?
They are companies that want and need to make a buck to pay tens of thousands of employees.


@ only 3 USD a gallon, the incentive to get a fuel sipper is losing its appeal.

In 2003 I went to look at the then newer version of the Prius. I went to the parts department and asked then how much did the battery cost and how much was the electric motor.

$6k for the battery and $8k for the motor. Liked the car but a little short on front seat legroom for me. I bought a Scion XB for 10k less and averaged 36 MPG (auto).

I have heard about the new triple range cheap "miracle battery" for more than that decade ago investigation of the real hybrid that took them mainstream. The predictions, if you believed tham were that by this last year we would already have seen 500 miles range pure electric vehicles.

So progress in the field has stagnated while everyone waits for the "breakthrough" battery innovation. You would think that Nissan would be doing just about everything they could to incorporate any battery improvement into the Leaf, since they made a huge financial commitment to a BEV, but their range has not changed now in 3 years?

It's sad to see other areas of innovation put on hold while waiting for the great battery breakthrough and when (if) it comes in a few decades then the cost, reliability, and safety issues will drag it out for a few more decades.

Half of my 63 years, we've been waiting, while predicting it would be here decades ago.

Baloney.

regards
Mech

The trouble is the market is "created", the prius for example made its own market over time. AKA It doesn't sell well today but tomorrow is anyones guess. So we are just being short sighted.

Also $3 a gallon fuel is ungodly expensive! When I start seeing gas get back down to pre recession levels ($1 a gallon) I will say that the price isn't a motivator anymore.

But you are correct, most nimrods see gas drop 10 cents for a few months junk their civic and buy a V10 dodge.

The Illuminati Motor Works 'Seven' has over 200 miles range, and so does Dave Cloud's Dolphin. And so does the Tesla Model S; even the 60kWh pack model. 'Seven' has just a ~33kWh pack, and so does the Dolphin.

Aerodynamic drag is the key to long range and high efficiency. The EV1 and the XL1 and the VLC all have world class low drag, and they are not surprisingly among the highest efficiency cars ever made. The Dolphin and Seven are right up there, too.

I'm seeing this a ton in my area with fuel now at only $2.88 a gallon and dropping.

People are buying full size trucks and selling their fuel sipping commuter's.
There are some great deals on all the economy boxes in my area!!!

I never could understand how people can possibly lack any type of short term memory, gas was $4 a gallon not long ago, went down; and price came back up and went down, therefor, THIS TIME its going to just keep going down?

This is why there needs "unfortunately" to be some sort of government motivation and some willpower by the people who should know better to do backhanded things to make economical vehicles have an edge.

I see the tax break, why not relaxed emissions if you meet a very high mpg standard (within reason) eliminate costly portions of the crash test that have nothing to do with the crash test (try to reduce/eliminate the cost to crash test low volume cars, eliminate the different transmission is a different car crap, etc) Eliminate certain gray market laws on cars that meet special criteria (wink wink) Eliminate the "origin" or "makeup" of parts laws on vehicles that meet certain criteria. In other words gut the million hoops written by lobbiests to isolate our auto market but only on cars that would move our energy use in a positive light (opposite of the Bush deregulation of large trucks)

Sadly the car companies basically dictate future legislation that affect them so I know this is moot but if an external interest were to bother the government enough we might see some of the crap relaxed or removed to make it easier to get revolutionary cars to market.

I know these types of changes would get backlash, we would get the car doesn't meet X standard arm flailing or someone thinking a few thousand economy cars will ruin the environment and the whole mantra of BS, the

canned answer would have to be,

you are allowed to drive a motorcycle but because only 2 cars were crash tested and passed the enclosed small car is obviously less safe than a motorcycle.

Shut up and don't buy it if you don't like it, says the guy with a Yugo, a comutacar and a Subaru 360

Cheers

This ties in nicely with aerohead/gilkison's "high speed fuel saving" scheme; John is trying to convince me that they're taking the high-speed transit approach to aero promotion because it's a sexier thing to sell to the average Uhmerican than the fuel or money-saving aspect. I agree that Uhmericans pay lip service at best to saving fuel or money, no matter how "awful" the economy purportedly is.

Automakers make what the know will sell, or what they hope will sell.
Convince them something like VLC or Seven will sell, and they'll make it.
If they don't make it, you can bet they aren't convinced it'd sell.

Heck, I don't think I'd buy a VLC.
The rolling V4 prototype looks far more like a VCC, very cramped car.
That's even before they add a shell around it.

Shaving 200 kg off the VW up! would bring it down to around 630 kg.
It's been done on a (bigger) Golf: -30% weight.
Edison's VLC - if it ever gets produced - will be heavier than their X-Prize vehicle.


Toyota took a serious plunge with the original Prius and never made any money out of it - on the contrary.
But they thought they had something good, and accepted the initial losses.

Yet it's still a very conventionally shaped car.
The original was a small bland sedan, the later ones had a classic Jap Liftback style (on gen II and III), 4 wheels, not podded.


Tesla is selling it's cars, even at their high prices.
It's also a very conventional, good and sporty looking car - aside from the unconventional propulsion.


So, you can get a new propulsion system on the market and get it accepted.
You can get a new vehicle concept on the market as well - MPV, SUV , X-over, ...

But apparently, you can't do both at the same time.


Don't ever go near a European fuel pump then :roll eyes:
It'd be sheer blasphemy @ 5,46 euro / 7,40 per US Gallon.
Used to be more expensive - our fuel prices have come down as well, just not as much (most of the price is taxes).

IMHO it falls somewhere between inexorable and inevitable. Of course if humanity fails to shake off the parasites, it could go down with everything else. But I have faith in people.

The shape is an aerodynamic consideration, but the real action is in parts count and suspension attachment points.

Here's a car with composite quarter eliptic springs integral to the chassis:
http://blog.2modern.com/wp-content/u...970b-500wi.jpg
http://http://blog.2modern.com/2010/03/the-open-source-car.html

Which recession is that?? I haven't seen fuel prices in my area below $2/gallon since 2008! I don't think it's the recession that is the cause of our gas prices.

And yeah, you'd have a heart attack if you saw gasoline prices in Europe.

-soD

I don't know why $1 gas would be a good thing. It's already such a small expense at $3+.

Broken springs happen; I'd rather have to bolt on a replacment.

I was buying e85 for $0.85 a gallon in 2006, we had stations here and there around a buck a gallon in 05 for ethanol free when the great climb started. Back then $1.50 was intolerable. Still is but nothing you can do about it. (save an ev)

From as far as I can tell the recession started late 2001 and seems to have continued to this day, just because stocks have gone up does not mean that the mode income of people has gone back to anywhere near what it was in the mid to late 90s, at least in this state.

just because there are a handfull of successes the failure rates in this state have more or less increased and the number of full time, moderate paying jobs has continued to slide or stagnate. The overall number of small brick and mortar has died, downtowns are vacant, as are the malls and even the strip malls.

i ran a small family business for many years and for me and everyone I know the party stopped in 2001, we had a few up years after but times where better the further you go back and it wasn't just me, a lot of folks retired because they thought the 90's had too poor of sales, sheesh, good thing i now "work" for somebody else for a living and don't try to make for a living anymore. I occasionally will go out once or twice a year as a hobby but people around here don't have disposable income, they will buy frivolous food purchases but are on the thrift store mode for anything else. you would be amazed by the skyrocketing number of long term unemployed and the number of homeless is on the rise.

Cheers
Ryan

it would be a good thing because it would mean we are using so little fuel that there is an oversupply of the stuff.

Also i didn't say $1 gas was a good thing, just that gas is too expensive for me, but personally I would rather buy no gas, even if its $1 a gallon.

if everyone thought the way I did we might use less fuel and not make frivelous SUV purchases because the fuel dropped a whopping $0.10, ah well.

Shape is a practical consideration first and foremost.
Aero considerations are added if the above allows for it.

One of Hucho's points is that aero development has slowed down / virtually stopped, due to official testing methods not taking into account aero drag.
NEDC tests are run on a dyno .

The moment the testing goes real-world, we'll see aero taking a greater roll, and full belly pans / air dams / wheel fairings / wheel spats will be an almost instant standard feature.

It'd instantly lead to more (ab)use of it, increasing prices again

Jason Fagone has a well written article up on Wired:

Big Automakers Won't Build the Car of the Future, Small Inventors Will | Wired Opinion | Wired.com

Here's my comment from that article:

A part of the discussion that is missing is a chicken and egg thing - expectations of buyers and the willingness of car makers to build something new and different. Witness the fact that most/all EV's have a "grill" even though they don't need one. This is partly because many EV's are conversions, and partly because most buyers are squeamish, and won't even consider something "weird.

All design is compromise, and with less available energy onboard an EV, aerodynamic efficiency is far more important when you need the range. Gasoline is so energy packed, that it has made engineers lazy, in my opinion.

The design of an EV also has to start with the placement of the battery, for Cg considerations and for making it work with the needs of a practical car. Other important pieces in building an EV is heat for the defroster and keeping the people inside warm. There is a HUGE excess of heat on every ICE - indeed this is the red flag pointing to their horribly low efficiency.

EV's need direct heating windshield defrosters, like Ford and others had in the 1980's: a molecule thick coating of gold on the glass that defrosts it in seconds. Heated seats and/or heated vests (like motorcyclists use) can keep the people in the car toasty warm for just a few 10's of watts, instead of 1,000's. Also, thermal insulation in the body can go a long way to reducing both heating and cooling loads.

Really low aero drag requires that the boxy mold be broken. The EV1 and the VW XL1 have narrower rear wheel tracks. Tapering the sides of the car can save as much as 40% of the overall drag. Covered rear wheels *at least* is also required. And covering the front wheels is also very helpful - see the 1938 Schlörwagen aka "Pillbug". ( Schlorwagen Photo by NeilBlanchard | Photobucket ) It has a Cd of 0.18 and that would be considerably lower with an electric drivetrain; because of the much lower cooling required. This can save up to ~10% of the aero drag.

I know of at least two awesome cars that were being built for the X-Prize that didn't get to compete; for various reasons including the rash of regulations and paper work:

Dave Cloud's 'Dolphin' is an aerodynamic wonder forged from a heavily modified Metro, that has two seats and goes over 200 miles on *lead acid* batteries.

Ken Fry's 'The Zing!' is a tandem two seater tadpole trike built from scratch, and is a true serial hybrid.

I'm looking forward to seeing both Jason Fagone and Kevin Smith (of Illuminati) and Seven next Monday, the 9th at MIT!