Best 50 Inventions of 2010
No. 19

إديسون 2

Edison2

Perhaps the easiest way to make a car more fuel-efficient is to make it lighter. The designers of the Edison2 concept vehicle have taken auto dieting to the extreme. The car — as aerodynamic as it is anorexic — weighs less than 400 kg (800 lb.), which helps it get 2.29 L/100 km (102.5 m.p.g). That was good enough to share the Progressive Insurance Automotive X-Prize, an award set up to encourage development of production-ready cars that are super-fuel-efficient. Sadly, Edison2 team owner Oliver Kuttner says you won't see the car at your dealer anytime soon. But it's a hopeful sign for an oil-pinched future.

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The Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE was a global competition that awarded $10 million to three teams that built cars that achieved at least 100 MPGe in real world driving. These cars were safe, affordable and desirable with the ultimate goal of offering more efficient vehicle choices to consumers.

With our partners at Consumer Reports, we also advanced the adoption of a new consumer metric, called MPGe (Miles per Gallon or gasoline equivalent energy), that offers consumers the ability to make an apples-to-apples comparison of this next generation of vehicles that will use a variety of energy sources and fuels with the conventional cars they drive today.

Progressive Insurance was our Title Sponsor and the U.S. Department of Energy our major supporter because they believe in incentivizing innovation through competition to reshape the automotive industry. It was truly a public/private partnership. www.progressiveautoxprize.org

http://www.edison2.com/
Miles per gallon gasoline equivalent (MPGe) or (MPG_ge)