Progressive Automotive X PRIZE

Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE Responds to HP2g Claims

HP2g put out a release last night claiming withdrawal from the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE as well as making some unsubstantiated allegations. I’d like an opportunity to set the record straight:

 

As you recall, HP2g was one of over 120 teams that entered the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE non-binding Letter of Intent program. While Mr. Pelmear states in his release that HP2G voluntarily withdrew from the competition, HP2g actually did not complete the full Registration Application prior to the deadline and was therefore rejected as a Registered Team.

 

Mr. Pelmear claims in his statement that an LOI contender “was allowed to be part of the competition rule setting and ultimate team evaluation process” (italics added for emphasis). As for the former, X PRIZE deliberately sought feedback from a variety of sources in an effort to construct a fair competition incorporating the best industry insight from a wide range of automotive experts. It is true that all teams in fact had the opportunity to provide input... We recorded over 2,000 comments, held a webinar with the LOI Contenders, and reviewed and considered input from every LOI Contender that took the time to contact us. We also held multiple working groups with industry experts to establish the competition guidelines.

 

With regard to the latter accusation levied by Mr. Pelmear, at no point were teams were involved in decisions about rules and procedures. It is very important to note that none of the teams are part of the judging panels for the upcoming Design Judging Phase of the competition nor were any teams part of a competitor evaluation process in the past.  

 

Here are two excerpts from official documents that may prove useful:

From the Letter of Intent itself:

                                                                    

“The Team will receive timely updates on significant competition developments, including the release of draft competition guidelines for public comment.  In addition, while there is no guarantee that the Team’s suggestions will be accepted, the X PRIZE Foundation will provide written responses to all comments and suggestions submitted by the Team in response to the draft competition guidelines.  As well, the Team will have an opportunity to submit additional comments before final competition guidelines are released."

        

From the Competition Guidelines:

 

“We recognize that some contributors may end up competing, or perhaps advising those who compete, but that is an unavoidable result of engaging with so many experts who have real-world knowledge of the automotive industry.  We believe that the Guidelines published here are balanced and credible, and that this would not have been possible without seeking as much feedback as possible from diverse parties, without regard for future possible conflicts.  Had we only sought or accepted input from those unlikely to have a future interest in the competition, the result would have been poor Guidelines.  Our process has been open, and we do not hide our involvement with any party."

                                                                                      

“With the publication of these final Guidelines, we are adopting a strict no-conflict policy.  For example, the Prize Development Advisory Board will be disbanded and we will now appoint a conflict-free Prize Administration Advisory Board."

 

As to his unsubstantiated allegations, I can only say that the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE has consistently run a highly-public and transparent process in accordance with the highest professional standards of conduct as a fair and honest broker. We wish Horsepower Sales well in the development and sale of their technology and we remain focused on our accepted Registered Teams. We wish them all luck as we move forward to the Design Judging phase of the competition.

Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Forum Board Re-Vamp

We are in the final stages of reviewing application and are now beginning to turn our focus to initiatives that can support the pool of registered teams. While the final announcement of accepted teams is still a few weeks away, we are working to launch a few initiatives around this same time. One of these projects includes the re-launch of the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Forum board.

We took down the Forum board a few weeks ago, as it had begun to lose relevancy with our change in focus. More importantly, the application lacked the robust security that we needed to keep spammers from interfering with the dialogue. We will be launching a new board in the coming weeks, and as we formulate topics, we would love to hear from you. What do you want to discuss? What do you want to hear about from the teams? And, teams, what do you want to be able to share or ask for in a public setting?

Our goal is to make the new Forum board a useful (and spam-free) resource that benefits open dialogue amongst the public and our competing teams. We know that there were issues with the last board, so here is your chance to let us know what you believe can be done to make this new board better.

Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE Registration Update

During the seven month registration period, which concluded at midnight on 2/28/2009, the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE received more than 120 registration applications for participation in the competition.  Almost 80 applications were submitted in the final few days of the registration period! We are thrilled at the level of interest and enthusiasm demonstrated by so many teams worldwide.  

 

For the next 30 days, the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE team will be focused on completing reviews of the documents submitted at the end of the registration period, to determine our final group of competitors.  Having done an initial assessment of nearly 40 applications, I am confident that we will have an amazing pool of teams, vehicles, and technologies vying for the prize.

 

We will inform the teams within 30 days of the acceptance or rejection of their application.  All teams that are not accepted will have a one time opportunity to submit additional information if they wish for us to reconsider the application.  This process has been in place for all applicants since we opened registration. We will not deviate from it, and we expect all applicants to abide by the process and our final decision.

 

The next step for our registered teams is the completion of the Data Submission package.  As we are still determining the final list of competitors, the package will not be available to the registered teams until we have completed the review process and sent acceptance letters to all approved applicants.  Supplying the information to those already registered would provide an unfair advantage in the time allowed to complete the submission.  Please be assured that we have the team’s best interests in mind while we attempt to keep a fair and level playing field for all of our competitors.

 

Thank you for your patience and support during this critical period.  You will hear from us soon with the exciting announcement of the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE registered competitors!

X PRIZE at TED and a Crazy Green Idea

There have been a lot of exciting events at the X PRIZE Foundation recently. Let me highlight two events in particular:

1) X PRIZE's Peter Diamandis, Chairman and CEO and Robert Weiss, Vice Chair and President, spoke at an X PRIZE Breakfast briefing at TED in Long Beach on Friday morning, February 6, 2009. Peter and Bob shared the latest and greatest about the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE, the Google Lunar X PRIZE, the Archon X PRIZE for Genomics, as well as a number of prizes under development. The crowd of 100+ luminary individuals brainstormed their own X PRIZE ideas as well.

2) The X PRIZE Foundation and Prize Capital announced the winner of the $25,000 "What's Your Crazy Green Idea?" contest. Bryan Le and Kyle Good from Irvine, CA won for their idea to develop a new storage medium: an “ultra-capacitor.” Check out their YouTube video submission to learn more about their idea.

Stay tuned for updates on more exciting X PRIZE events in the near future.

Competition Guidelines Have Just Been Released

The revised Competition Guidelines for the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE competition were released over the week-end, coinciding with our appearance at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit. You can download a copy by visiting the Guidelines page on our website.

This document weighs in at almost 70 pages, so there is a lot to consume. For those familiar with the previous Draft Guidelines, check out page 5 of the current version to find out what's new. In the area of "most requested", we have removed the top speed requirement, allowed tandem seating in the Alternative Class, reduced acceleration requirements, reduced back seat requirements in the Mainstream Class, and removed the requirement for an eco-feedback indicator.

It took longer than we anticipated to get this full update out, but we found that with every new interim version came new questions and new challenges. We could not have developed these guidelines without the help of hundreds of individuals, organizations, companies and government agencies (especially the U.S. Department of Energy and Argonne National Laboratory, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Department of Transportation), and the general public (we have read and considered well over 2,000 comments). 

To everyone involved: The PIAXP team is immensely grateful for your essential and generous assistance.  A special thanks to our own John Shore and Bob Larsen for their tireless efforts at endlessly tinkering under the hood until they got the Guidelines to this point.  

Feel free to drop us a line after you have read the Guidelines, or visit us at NAIAS in Michigan Hall through Tuesday. You can even see a vehicle from Letter of Intent Contender HP2G, and testdrive a vehicle from Registered Team Myers Motors while you're there.

 

Videos, videos, videos!

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

Progressive CEO Glenn Renwick

March 20th Press Event - Part 1 of 3

Part 2 of 3 | Part 3 of 3

Peter Diamandis: Why an X PRIZE for Automotive?

X PRIZE Foundation Vision

Introducing the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE!

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:


Watch Part Two; Part Three.

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!

SAE Webcast on the Automotive X PRIZE

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 recorded webcast is available here: http://xprize.acrobat.com/p92151066/

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.

The Road to the Release of Rules: Energy and Emissions Working Group

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

Rules Progress

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!