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Tech stocks - Monday, November 2, 2009

X PRIZE Receives $5.5M From DOE To Promote Efficient Autos

Better cars remain a priority of the Obama Administration as the
Department of Energy (DOE) today announced that they were giving $5.5
million to the X Prize Foundation for their work to inspire new,
energy efficient vehicles. The money will used to educate people about
the contest and expand the outreach efforts for the competition.

The Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE was announced back in
March 2008 and will award at least $10 million to the team that
develops a vehicle that can exceed 100 mpg (or its energy equivalent
fuel efficiency) and win a cross–country stage race. Originally when
the partnership with X PRIZE was announced, the DOE committed to
contributing upwards of $3.5 million to the competition.

Creating a better car seems like the main goal of the competition but
the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE is also about educating students
and the general public about alternative energy, fuel conservation
methods, advanced technology vehicles, and climate change. Over 100
teams originally applied to the competition but after several rounds
of judging 43 teams developing a total of 53 vehicles remain.

$10 million may not seem like much money to play for considering how
much will be spent by the competitors to develop their vehicles, but
the X PRIZE does deliver winners. The first X PRIZE was announced back
in 1996 asking contestants to build and fly a three-passenger vehicle
100 kilometers into space. Eight years later the renamed Ansari X
PRIZE was awarded to Scaled Composites, a team backed by former
Microsoft (MSFT:NASDAQ) co-founder Paul Allen.