 Illuminati Motor Works |
Members of the Illuminati Motor Works team hoist their Seven automobile onto a flatbed trailer for the trip from their Illinois garage to X Prize trials in Michigan. Nate Knappenburger holds Seven in place while Thomas Pasko secures a wheel. |
After months of technologizing and tinkering, dozens of next-generation automobiles are converging on a Michigan speedway for the first round of on-track tests leading to $10 million in prizes. For some teams, this may be the end of the road.
“It’s certainly possible that some teams may not make it all the way through shakedown,” Eric Cahill, senior director of the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize, told me today from the Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Mich.
Twenty-eight teams from around the world – ranging from high-school and college students to backyard inventors and honest-to-goodness automakers – are bringing 36 super-fuel-efficient vehicles to the speedway for this first phase of the X Prize competition.
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