Here's some more information on the ceremony:
A team lead by Charlottesville developer Oliver Kuttner has won an international competition sponsored by Progressive Auto Insurance and the U.S. Department of Energy to build a car that can go 100 miles on a gallon of gasoline.
At a ceremony outside the Historical Society of Washington, and addressed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D), Kuttner's team, Edison2, was awarded the largest chunk of the $10 million purse offered by the X Prize Foundation, which created the competition. Edison2 won with its race car-inspired Very Light Car, which achieved 102.5 miles per gallon using lightweight materials, aerodynamic design and a combustion engine. It beat out vehicles that relied on batteries, which are heavier -- and thus create more drag -- more expensive, and dependent on electricity generated by greenhouse gas-emitting power plants.
I didn't know Nancy Pelosi was going to be there or might have stayed to see her and the awards ceremony. But then again I'd been up for almost a day so I probably would have gone home anyway.
Here's more on the award:
Two other car makers will split $2.5 million each: Mooresville, N.C.-based Li-Ion Motors Corp., which made the Wave2, a two-seat electric car that gets 187 miles on a charge, and X-Tracer Team of Winterthur, Switzerland, whose motorcycle-like electric mini-car, the E-Tracer 7009, gets 205 miles on a charge. Both of those companies are taking orders for their cars. X-Tracer Team says the electric E-Tracer will be available to U.S. consumers next year.
The X Prize, which is funded by Progressive Insurance, gave 111 teams 30 months to develop their vehicles and then put them through driving, safety and efficiency tests.
And this one of the reason I love living in Washington because you never know what you'll run into.
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