US$ 1 Billion Prize for Selling 60,000 100 mpg Cars

U.S. Rep. Dan Lungren’s bill that will award US$ 1 Billion to the first US incorporated automobile company who can sell 60,000 units of 100 mpg gasoline powered car is enticing. But isn’t the price too much?

The reward may be huge at first glance but this maybe one of the cheapest way to hasten the development of 100 miles per gallon vehicles. Other companies, not only in the automotive industry, usually use contests to come up with innovative products. Contests such as this one, when marketed correctly, generate more ideas and produce more participants. These contests reduce funding for R&D in companies and, in turn, leave the development of ideas in the hands of the competitors.

There have been contests about 100 mpg vehicles in the past as well but let’s face it - the winners only complied with the guidelines set forth by the organizers. The winning vehicles are not even visually appealing. The designs are not that good and they lack the added features that normal vehicles have. Some even lack the ordinary features that we commonly look for in our cars.

If the US population of more than 300 million is taken into consideration, selling 60,000 units seem very achievable. With the increasing prices of gasoline and oil based products, marketing a competitive 100 mpg vehicle will not be hard. All the competitors have to do is to come up with a car and display it in showrooms.

Charging Cars Without Cables

Electric Cables
Source: Vera Kratochvil / www.publicdomainpictures.net

Wireless charging has been around since the 1990’s. It has been used in mobile phones, consumer gadgets and medical devices. Recently, this kind of technology is being introduced in electric vehicles as well.

Wireless charging is also called inductive charging. It makes use of two pads: a transmitter of electromagnetic fields and a receiver which converts them back to electricity which charges the battery. This technology reduces the risk of electric shocks because the pads can be entirely covered but it is also less efficient in transmitting electricity.

Why an Electric Vehicle

One of the low selling points for electric vehicles is the relatively long charging time. Most electric vehicles take 8 hours for a full charge with recent developments able to recharge batteries 80% full in 30 minutes.

Electric Vehicle
Source: Peter Griffin / www.publicdomainpictures.net

However, 30 minutes is still a long time for drivers that are used to driving gasoline or diesel powered vehicles. These fossil fueled vehicles take minutes, if not seconds, to refill. Furthermore, range anxiety, the fear that electric vehicles will run out of charge before one can reach the destination is still a very large issue.

New technologies have been trying to combat these problems since the introduction of electric vehicles to the market. More and more recharging stations are being built and battery swapping procedures are being looked into to make electric vehicles more acceptable to the consumers. There are also great efforts being put to increasing their range.

Why electric vehicles is also being developed vis-à-vis ethanol/biofueled vehicles is to increase the options that we will have in the future in case we will have to make that switch from fossil fueled vehicles to alternative fueled ones. Contrary to the notion that electric vehicles contribute almost the same amount of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere as fossil fueled vehicles, the point of electric vehicle proponents is that if electric vehicles become widely used in the future, controlling the source of greenhouse gas emissions will be much easier because monitoring will only be done at the source i.e. power plants.

Much more, if these power plants get their electricity from clean renewable resources like solar or hydrogen, very little greenhouse gas emissions will be produced.