During a panel discussion on public transportation today at the Santa Monica AltCar Expo, Cristin Lindsay, senior director of the Automotive X Prize, gave us a bit more information about the teams that have signed up to participate in the race. You might remember that in late August, the X Prize foundation announced that there were over 100 teams that had signed up to compete for the $10 million prize. While we've gotten our fair share of interviews in with some of these teams, we certainly haven't looked at all of them and don't quite know what sorts of vehicles they're working on. Indeed, the foundation is still vetting the teams for the competition. Today, during the Big Blue Bus panel, Lindsay said that 50 of those teams are working on small neighborhood vehicles, including low-speed NEVs. So, if you're expecting a whole bunch of Tesla Roadsters in the race when it starts next year, might want to recheck your expectations.

You can hear Lindsay mention this X Prize update at around minute 29 in the audio included in this post.

UPDATE: well, maybe not.

Sometimes, people on the green fringe are called some not-so-nice names, with "crazy" being one of the more mild. But, if you're the kind of greenie who revels in the wacky, perhaps you've got an idea you'd like to share with the world and you're sick of yelling it from the highway overpass. Right now would be a good time to get your idea out there, because the mainstream X Prize Foundation is looking for "Crazy Green Ideas" and is willing to pay $25,000 for them. Well, for one of them at least.

The X Prize Foundation, which is putting together the Progressive Auto X Prize, today announced a video contest called "What's Your Crazy Green Idea?" that has a $25,000 prize for "the best video proposing a new, world-changing X PRIZE in the field of Energy and the Environment." Use dreams to power Segways? Capture energy from people typing on a keyboard to power the computer? Harness the energy from unladen swallows or migrating coconuts? These are all fair game for the crazy idea contest. Whether they'll win - well, that's up to the X Prize folks.

The short version of the rules is that they need to be two-minutes long, posted to YouTube soon (winners will be announced in December) and must answer the following three questions:

1. What is the specific prize idea?
2. What is the Grand Challenge or world-wide problem that you are trying to solve?
3. How will this prize benefit humanity?

Submit your videos here. More details after the break.

[Source: X Prize]

As predicted, the Automotive X Prize crossed the century mark for teams signed up to compete in the "Ultimate Fuel Economy Challenge." While we know that not all of these teams consider themselves to be real contenders, the fact that there are so many people ready to spend so much time and energy thinking about a 100+mpge vehicle is pretty astounding.

Early next year, organizers will begin weeding out teams that don't qualify for the next round. The X Prize foundation says that over 120 teams, from 28 states and 17 countries, have already signed up for the competition, which will kick off next year and contains a cross-country stage race that will hit up to ten cities. There's no word on how many teams might be left after the pruning, but they'll certainly bear watching. Undeclared teams have until January 1, 2009 to sign up.

[Source: X Prize Foundation]

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg at the official start of the Auto X Prize.

Once all of the designers and teams get their ducks in a row and prep their vehicles for the cross-country portion of the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize in 2009 and 2010, they're going to need places to go. For now, all we know is that the route will start in New York City in September 2009 and end in, well, somewhere in California I'm guessing. The X Prize organizers announced yesterday that "interest is high" in hosting some of the events in between the coasts, and listed 14 cities that have said they'd like to host a stage race: Albuquerque, Boston, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Denver, Indianapolis, New York, Las Vegas, Long Beach, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle and St. Louis.

The stage races will take place over (likely) ten stops and each "will feature a driving competition over city, suburban and rural roads between 30 and 200 miles in length." The races will show that the 100 mpge cars can achieve their numbers under real-world conditions.

Another new tidbit: there are now 94 teams that want to participate in the competition. Seems likely that we'll have over 100 by the time the application deadline hits at the end of the summer.

[Source: X PRIZE Foundation]