Friday morning, September 17th, 2010, all 3 (Edison2, Li-Ion, and X-Tracer) PIAXP winning vehicles and Team Leaders appeared on MSNBC’s Today Show in New York City.
[Source: MSNBC Today Show]
On page 9A of the Friday, September 17th, 2010 issue of USA TODAY newspaper Progressive Insurance published a full page ad of the Automotive X PRIZE Winners.
Friday, September 17th, 2010 USA TODAY Newspaper PIAXP Winners Full Page Ad.
Here are several X-Tracer Team PIAXP win reports of the Alternative Tandem Class:
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2010.09.16 – LA Times Blog by Tiffany Hsu – Three fuel-efficient cars win Automotive X PRIZE competition.
2010.06.24 PIAXP Knockdown Stage Highway Efficiency Test E-Tracer #79 (Photo by Stefano Paris).
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2010.09.16 – Autoblog Green – Automotive X PRIZE: E-Tracer captures victory in Alternative Tandem Class.
2010.06.28 – E-Tracer #79 running the PIAXP Dynamic Lateral Acceleration Test (Photo by Stefano Paris).
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2010.09.16 – earth2tech – And the Auto X PRIZE Goes to…A Very Light Weight Car.
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2010.09.16 – CNET Reviews – cartech blog – X PRIZE winner E-Tracer powered by AC Propulsion electric-drive system.
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2010.09.16 – Wired Autopia – X PRIZE Winners Look Weird…With Good Reason.
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2010.09.16 – Kitty Felde from Southern California Public Radio 89.3 KPCC interviews AC Propulsion President and CEO Tom Gage on enabling the Swiss firm Peraves win the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. Don’t miss the KPCC audio MP3 of the interview.
2010.09.16 – AX Propulsion’s Tom Gage with PIAXP winning E-Tracer #79 and award check (Photo by Kitty Felde/KPCC).
2010.09.16 – PIAXP Trophy and winning E-Tracer #79 (Photo by Kitty Felde/KPCC).
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2010.09.16 – X Prize Foundation Announces Winners In High-Efficiency Car Design Contest
In This Photo: Edward Markey, Roger Riedener
U.S. House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming Chairman Edward Markey (D-MA) shakes hands with Peraves Winterthur CEO Roger Riedener while sitting behind the wheel of the X-Tracer Team Switzerland “E-Tracer #79,” the Automotive X Prize Alternative Tandem Class winning vehicle outside the U.S. Capitol September 16, 2010 in Washington, DC. Sponsored by Progressive Automotive Insurance, The three X Prize winning vehicles emerged from an original field of 111 competing teams, representing 136 vehicle entries from around the world. Each vehicle is capable of achieving better than 100 miles per gallon or the energy equivalent (MPGe).
(Source: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America)
2010.09.16 – E-Tracer #79 visits the U.S. Congress. Massachusetts 5th District Congressman and Chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming Ed Markey sports an all electric smile in the X-PRIZE winning X-Tracer (electric MonoTracer).
2010.09.16 – E-Tracer #79 visits the U.S. Congress. Massachusetts 5th District Congressman and Chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming Ed Markey takes a seat in the X-PRIZE winning all electric MonoTracer. (Photo by Jacquelyn Martin/AP).
[Source: Congressman Ed Markey, Ed Markey Wiki, Ed Markey Zimbio]
Thursday, September 16th, 2010 was an incredibly exciting day for Team X-Tracer attending the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE awards ceremony hosted at 10:30am on the grounds of the Historical Society Museum of Washington, DC. E-Tracer #79 powered by AC Propulsion was announced the winner of the Alternative Tandem Class. Cabin Motorcycle enthusiasts Tom and Kathy Mohn, and Dan Whitfield were in attendance to show their unwaivering support having driven up in their 2000 EcoMobiles. MonoTracer™ owner Rod Kuhns also joined us in in the festivities. Peraves founder Arnold Wagner and Mrs. Wagner were in attendance along with AC Propulsion President & CEO Tom Gage, EV and E-Tracer enthusiast Stefano Paris, and of course the core team of Roger Riedener, Felix Wagner, and Jim Lorimer and their better halves Désirée, Karen, and Magdi. A full video of Thursday’s ceremonies and photos await later processing.
During the afternoon Roger and Jim drove E-Tracer #79 in a caravan with the winning Edison 2 and Li-Ion vehicles over to address Congress about the X PRIZE and the need for efficient vehicles. Afterwards all 3 vehicles and Aptera stopped for an hour long display in front of the U.S. Department of Energy (a PIAXP sponsor). US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu stopped by to admire and learn more about the X PRIZE winning vehicles.
Team X-Tracer was then off to New York with E-Tracer #79 for early Friday morning news media interviews. As time allows we’ll try to keep the blog updated with all the latest E-Tracer coverage and more detailed blog entries.
In the meantime, view the PIAXP “Accelerating the Future” video that was shown during the X PRIZE awards ceremony:
Another short video clip that was played as Team X-Tracer was announced the winners was this brief interview with Peraves President and E-Tracer pilot Felix Wagner in “Testing the X-Tracer”:
Catch some glimpses of the futuristic AC Propulsion powered E-Tracer #79 at Argonne National Laboratory on the dyno during the X PRIZE validation testing in this latest PIAXP video:
X-Tracer Team leader and E-Tracer visionary Roger Riedener and team member Jim Lorimer share their passion for the phenomenally efficient high performance cabin motorcycle E-Tracers in this nicely edited Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE validation video.
This innovative tandem two seat vehicle uses an all-American powertrain composed of a 150 kW electric drive system made by AC Propulsion and a 19.4 kWh lithium polymer battery system from NeuEnergy in San Diego. The Kelvar/carbon fiber monocoque chassis makes this roomy vehicle with such a low weight possible. This clever design has two extra wheels that deploy at low speed to stabilize the vehicle.
Vehicle: E-Tracer
Class: Alternative
No. of wheels: Two
Passengers: Two in-line
Drive type: Battery electric, rear-wheel-drive
Power source: 20 kwh lithium-ion batteries, 150kW electric drive system
We’re all back to our normal lives, or at least that’s what we are trying to tell ourselves. There is a lot of work that had to be postponed, and I’m way behind in my MonoTracer sales budget of 2010. It is a good thing that production has not yet reached the 4 MonoTracers per month. Just as well as the waiting list for a new MonoTracer with BMW K1200 engine, which also gets a respectable 60 mpg (no “e” this time around…;-) and has a world beating 600 mile range, is now down to about 3 months, so the backlog has been reduced.
We now also have 3 demonstrators, one in Germany, one in the USA and one here in Switzerland, something this company actually never had before. Next month, I will get two more, and the boys at the shop are already nervous: One of them is Lambo-orange with full carbon package, and I have the slight feeling it’s going to look awesome. But all this stuff that would usually excite me much more is just what Steve McQueen in “LeMans” once described as: “The time between races is called waiting…” he did not know how correct he was. The time between races and the award ceremony (says me) is called “suffering” or even “torture”…
We have a date, an approximate time, and a town: 16th of September, morning, Washington DC. We have the airline tickets. We have the suits and ties ready, arrggh. Our wives are discussing their outfits. Makes me crazy!
See you in DC, it’s going to be a public event and as soon as I know more, you’ll read it here first. -Roger
2010.06.25 - North American MonoTracer representative Jim Lorimer takes Walter Wegmueller (Swiss Ambassador to Detroit) for a spin.
2010.06.25- MonoTracer pilots Karl Zubler, Jim Lorimer, and Ben Dungee, with EcoMobile pilots Tom Mohn and Dan Whitfield.
Photos by Stefano Paris
Above, Argonne researcher Geoffrey Amann prepares the E-Tracer 79 for testing at the laboratory’s APRF. In August 2010, APRF researchers provided validation testing for the finalists in Progressive Insurance’s Automotive X Prize Competition to determine they met the competition’s goals for performance and efficiency targets. (Courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory)
I was picked up by Felix flying his A340-200 into Chicago and enjoyed a very smooth ride home to Switzerland today. I spent the last week in “Government Quarantine” at Argonne National Laboratory. The two E-Tracers passed all the foregoing tech inpections and all the dyno tests with ease, including the quite tough 15-minute run at 55 mph on a 4% grade, something you hardly do in real life. Even though we have been the only EV in the competition without battery cooling or even venting, the results were astonishing: With E-Tracer #79 the grade test started with a very warm battery at 35,6 deg C (from charging outside in a tent, ANL did not want Li-Ion vehicles to be charged OR stored inside due to a fire 10 (yes, ten) years ago…). There was NO cold soaking of vehicles before testing, not what I expected from a National Lab. After the grade test, where #79 ran at about 14,1 kW or about 0,7C constant current, the battery was at 36,5 deg C, so less than 1,0 deg C warmer.
After strapping E-Tracer #72 for the final time on the dyno for its grade test, I just had to go out of the test cell for a break. I just couldn’t take it anymore, 15 minutes seem like hours when you can hear that baby of yours scream inside. Finally, they called me back in and everybody smiled and congratulations followed from all the X PRIZE staff and the ANL crew. I can’t believe it…we’ve really done it!
What started 3 years ago with a blown clutch on my 1100cc-BMW-powered Ecomobile (on my drive back home to Switzerland from Brno racetrack in 2007, after beating everybody else there and with the Championship Cup in my luggage compartement, I shifted down instead of up at over 160 km/h…dahhh!) really ended with creating the world’s most efficient road-legal and production-ready, electric powered high-performance two-seater. It’s going to be official after the 16th of September. I am so glad I don’t have to brag about that fact myself anymore, don’t have to missionary around telling people the E-Tracer uses three times less energy for the same performance and interior space as a famous electric sports car.
Maybe the world is finally ready for the cabin motorcycle now, after all these years…
-Roger
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Our friends over at Designwerk have been getting ready this summer to compete with their ZeroTracer in Louis Palmer’s 80 day around the world ZERO Race. Louis Palmer drove his Solartaxi around the world on PV Solar generated energy in 2008 (Solartaxi visits Simi Valley). The ZERO Race starts this upcoming Monday, August 16th, 2010 in Geneva, Switzerland. Chief designer Tobias Wülser (responsible for the beautiful modern body design of the MonoTracer®) and Mechatronic Engineer Frank Loaker are the two pilots of the ZeroTracer which is a special purpose-built all electric E-Tracer® with 138kW electric drive system. In July Oerlikon Solar held a kick off party for the ZeroTracer which is being powered on the kilowatt-hours being produced by an Oerlikon Solar PV array in Switzerland. Below is a video and some photos of the Oerlikon Solar kick off party for the ZeroTracer team and their fantastic Designwerk – Peraves electric cabin motorcycle. We wish them Lightspeed! -Stefano
[slideshow]
