Some wonderful and informative video footage was prepared before and after our March 20th announcement of the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. John shared the great Jay Leno video statement of support in his lastest post and I linked to the video of our NBC Today Show appearance two posts ago. But there is lots more exciting video to watch, so I thought I'd embed the rest of the clips here for your viewing enjoyment!
March 20th Press Event Highlights
Progressive Insurance Joins Forces with X PRIZE Foundation
We are thrilled to introduce the Title Sponsor of the Automotive X PRIZE – Progressive Insurance! The newly renamed Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE was announced yesterday at the New York International Auto Show, and we could not be more proud to partner with Progressive. This is about two organizations that support innovation coming together in a way that can make a real difference in the world.
Cars from Letter of Intent teams at Rockefeller Plaza for NBC's Today show
Yesterday started off with a great segment about the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE on NBC's Today show:
Later that afternoon, Progressive CEO Glenn Renwick and X PRIZE Chairman and CEO Peter Diamandis announced the partnership to a crowd of automotive press, industry influencers, and notable guests in the public and private sectors.
X PRIZE Chairman & CEO Peter Diamandis Greets Progressive CEO Glenn Renwick
“The Progressive Automotive X PRIZE is a call to action to promote and inspire innovation,” said Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation. “The environmentally friendly cars created as a result of this competition will affect everyone who drives in ways we can’t even imagine today. Let the race begin!”
“We’ve been working hard to make a difference in car insurance for 70 years,” said Progressive’s CEO, Glenn Renwick. “Now we have a chance to make a difference by supporting the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE. This competition will result in more choices of more fuel-efficient vehicles for drivers and will be a catalyst for moving this technology forward, faster.”
“This competition represents what we’re all about in name and spirit—new ideas, competition and always working to do better,” added Renwick. “Being a part of this gives us a chance to make a real difference.”
Watch Part One of the announcement press conference:
In the run up to the official launch of the prize, it’s been clear that we were on the brink of something huge. Our list of supporters is growing very long, and in the past few weeks we’ve received statements of support from California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Jay Leno, and resolutions of support and praise from both houses of Congress.
On hand for the announcement at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan was New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who shared the news that NYC will host the official start of the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE races in 2009.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg at Progressive Automotive X PRIZE press conference
"The Progressive Automotive X PRIZE is an excellent example of how the private sector can spur solutions to our most complex challenges," said Mayor Bloomberg. "Here in New York City, we are also stepping up to the plate on energy conservation, by transforming our taxi fleet into hybrids and cutting the City's energy use by 30% over the next ten years. It's all part of PlaNYC, our plan to create a greener, greater New York. Development of a super-efficient car would be a major step forward in the fight against global warming - and it would help us reach our goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in New York City by 30% by 2030. To maximize national and international awareness of the X PRIZE, I am pleased to announce that New York will be the starting point for the race next year."
Progressive CEO Glenn Renwick, X PRIZE Chairman & CEO Peter Diamandis, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
Additionally, the U.S. Department of Energy announced it plans to make up to a $3.5 million USD grant to the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE (subject to appropriation from Congress) for a national education program that
will encourage young people to pursue careers in energy-efficient
sciences and technology. The education program will engage students through a comprehensive online knowledge center and national contests that ask them to imagine what the role of transportation will be in their future world. The program will be designed to build excitement among students, engaging them in a competitive and creative process while conveying the X PRIZE approach to fostering breakthroughs that benefit humanity through competition.
This is a very exciting day for us, but it’s only the beginning. We believe momentum will continue to build, and innovations that come from the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE will not just be on the road, they’ll be in our driveways. Start your environmentally friendly, fuel-efficient engines!
The SoCal SAE was kind enough to sponsor a webcast on the Automotive X PRIZE, conducted live from Caltech's Baxter Lecture Hall this past Wednesday, March 28th. We presented an overview of the prize, as well as a preview of the draft Competition Guidelines that will be released for public comment at the New York International Auto Show in a few days.
Presenters included S.M. Shahed, former president of SAE International and Mark Goodstein, executive director of the Automotive X PRIZE. After the presentation, there were 30 minutes of live Q&A with the local and remote audiences, with questions fielded by Shahed and the entire AXP team.
The webcast was broadcast online using Adobe's Acrobat Connect, which, if you view the recording, you'll see is a versatile and powerful tool. Many thanks to the participants, SAE, Caltech, and Adobe for making it a great event.
We've been at this
prize thing for a year now, acting in a very deliberate manner in order to get
it right the first time. We've been, from the beginning, reaching out to people
in the industry in the hopes that they would sit us on their knees and explain
the ways of the world. Well, at least the auto world. I'm sure that's been
frustrating for a lot of you, who just want to know the rules and get on with
the competition. But, as they say, nobody remembers a late performance, only a
bad one. Prizes are a particular type of beast: you get one chance to get the
rules right...once they're released, no tinkering...
We have finally
gotten to the final stretch. In addition to setting about to understand the
industry in order to craft the right set of rules--rules that will attract the
best and the brightest to come forth to design and compete the next
generation of vehicles, we've been looking for people and organizations that
would back our competition financially. We're nearing the finish line on both
efforts. On the rules side, which this post is about, we have arrived at a
framework for the competition and are now convening a few working groups on
issues of energy equivalency and emissions, on course design, on
manufacturability, etc. These sessions are intended to draw out the opinions of
the smartest people in their respective fields in order to help us fashion the
final rules for this grand competition.
On February 9, we convened the first of our working groups, on Energy and
Emissions. The task was to bring the smartest and most experienced people in the
world (okay, on this particular subject) together to give us guidance through
this minefield of "truthiness" and vitriol. No, really. Our
mission is to create a level playing field, so that EVs can compete with
hydrogen, diesel, gasoline, biodiesel, and all the various forms of hybridized
power trains (and everything in between)...if that's possible. Given what we've
seen from partisans of different energy/power train combinations, we expected
some fireworks. The folks who came (see the list below) were whip-smart, not shy
about their opinions, and, amazingly, civil! Maybe it
was because "truthiness" wouldn't carry water among these people. We didn't see
wild projections, justifying one energy as the ONLY solution--just reasoned
debate about the merits of one approach or another. That was refreshing.
At the end of the
day, our heads were spinning, mostly because we hadn't expected to change our
minds so much. But there was a remarkable level of consensus in the room, given
everything. And naturally, given the people in question, the quality of
conversation, and the good sense behind their comments, we shifted our opinions
somewhat. We weren't the only ones, either. One of the many common comments at
the end of the day was that people had actually learned quite a bit through the
course of the day and that they had changed their minds on a few key items.
That's impressive.
Okay, enough tooting
horns. We've integrated their feedback and we're now planning the other working
groups. More soon. We intend to release the rules quite soon and to get under
way...
Here is the list of
attendees (a huge thank you to all of you who came to spend the day with us,
some from as far away as Japan and Germany, others from Detroit and Washington,
DC, and some from as far away as the West Side of Los Angeles!):
Jeff Alson, Senior Policy Advisor, US EPA
Feng An, Executive Director, Auto Project on Energy and Climate Change
Michael Arny, President, Leonardo Academy
Gale Banks, President, Gale Banks Engineering
Alec Brooks, Chief Engineer, AeroVironment
Andre Brown, Strategic Business Development, Auto Research Center
Axel Friedrich, Head of Environment and Transport, UBA Germany
Stephen Gurski, Research Engineer, Argonne National Laboratory
Nancy Hazard, Former Director of the Tour de Sol
Ben Knight, VP, Automotive Engineering, Honda R&D Americas
Jane Long, Associate Director of Energy and Environment, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Spencer Quong, Senior Vehicles Analyst, Clean Vehicles Program, Union of Concerned Scientists
Jeff Ronning, Senior Consultant, Rocky Mountain Institute
Alex Sessions, Assistant Professor of Geobiology, Caltech
Fujio Takimoto, General Manager, R&D Planning Group, Subaru
Luke Tonachel, Vehicle Policy Analyst, NRDC
John Voelcker, Journalist, IEEE Spectrum
Michael Wang, Environmental Analyst, Center for Transportation Research at Argonne National Laboratory
Paul Wennberg, R. Stanton Avery Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Environmental Science and Engineering, Caltech
Ian Wright, Founder, Wrightspeed
Kathryn Zyla, Research Fellow, Pew Center on Global Climate Change
I know a lot of you out there are waiting with bated breath to review the rules of the Automotive X PRIZE. So here is a brief glimpse inside our rules creation process and an update on what to expect (a few teasers included!).
We are about 80% complete with the rules for the prize. That progress has been made by processing the extensive feedback we received from conversations with lots of experts from manufacturing, industry, entrepreneurial, environmental, regulatory, government, education, science, PR and media backgrounds.
We are still working on finalizing a few critical elements, including:
Our method for establishing energy and emissions equivalency between different fuel types and drivetrains
Our strategy for reviewing vehicle manufacturability, business plans, safety, affordability and desirability (likely during the admissions process for the prize)
Our plan for measuring X PRIZE level achievement through a real-world challenge (likely a race, so we are thinking about course design)
All of those topics are now being discussed with sub-groups of our wonderful AXP Prize Development Advisory Board and other experts. We hope to have the final rule set and prize structure released on our website for public comment by the end of the year. Stay tuned!
Welcome to my first post on this blog. As this is my first post, I'd like to provide you with some background on myself and my goals for my posts. My bio is attached to this website, but I thought a little context might help.
My experience is as a consultant for over 20 years in the Automotive Practice of McKinsey & Company, although I have now struck out on my own. As consultants, we provide the management of car companies, truck makers, parts suppliers, auto insurers, car dealers and more with advice on strategic decisions, and assistance in tactical implementation. I'd work on up to 200 projects a year, which led to the development of a broad base of information and perspective on all the links in the incredibly complex automotive value chain. Some might even call it an ecosystem...
As a result, I have some claim to the term "industry insider," and so that perspective will color my posts. However, I would not be posting here if I did not want to evolve rather than simply perpetuate the industry's accepted wisdom. I am sure the readers of this blog will let me know if my thinking gets a little too Neanderthal!
My goals for my posts do not include making grand pronouncements nor sweeping policy statements. There's lots of that going on now in The Great Automotive Efficiency Debate, and I am sure I cannot productively add to it. What I will try to do, weekly I hope, is comment on current developments in that debate, with an eye to offering data when it is germane, history when helpful, and linkages to other issues when relevant. There's plenty of heat within the debate (I wish we could channel it to power cars, that alone might end the energy problem!): I'll try to shed some light.
Gentlemen, start your (hopefully biofuel-powered and electric-motor hybridized) engines....
The Automotive X PRIZE hosted a very successful brainstorm session to
evaluate the most challenging issues we face when forming the rules and
structure of our prize. Issues on the table included prototype manufacturability, criteria for winning the prize, energy
equivalency, figures of merit, boundary conditions, the role of auto
manufacturers and more. The event was attended by a broad range of
world-class attendees from auto manufacturing, design,
regulatory, environmental, media, scientific & government backgrounds who
generously donated their time to help us evaluate the issues and weigh our
options. Big thanks go out from us to all of the attendees. Check out a picture of the event and a list
of our attendees.
Welcome to the Automotive X Prize (AXP) Blog. Our intent, in this space, is to create a forum for meaningful discussion about the issues we're confronting. If you've come here without knowing who we are and what we are trying to do, please visit the main AXP site to find out more.
Our aim is to provide a safe place for intelligent discourse. We encourage thoughtful comments from every side of every issue. We are non-partisan, neutral commentators on the complexities of today's automotive industry. Our mission is to create a future vision of that industry. We are plowing the ground so that others can create the future. For more on our editorial policy, please visit the About page of this blog.
We will discuss automotive issues -- public policy, corporate decisions, regulatory efforts, personal preferences, etc. -- and recount their impacts. We see this as a place to highlight barriers to progress, and also to propose and applaud solutions. Our website and this blog will highlight the heroes who are working to bring super-efficient mobility options to market.
Simply, we want to see the introduction of a new generation of desirable vehicles that help us use petroleum efficiently (if at all) and reduce harmful emissions.
We hope you will join us in our mission to affect positive change in one of the largest industries on the planet. The risks of inaction are too great to describe. We present a path to tangible solutions... radical breakthroughs that require imagination, risk and courage. We believe it can be done. We challenge you to help.
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