Automotive Y Prize

Am I quite alone in considering the aims of the Automotive X Prize to be utterly misguided?

The goal of the Automotive Y Prize is to develop a free-floating formation of intellectual commons open to be used by an informal network of small-scale fabricators, which when applied together add up to a motor vehicle, but which may or may not also be applied separately to produce a variety of useful products, suitable to meet the needs and spontaneous desires of the localized, organic, and mainly agrarian economy the adoption of which is crucial to getting us out of the ecological mess we’re in. The envisaged scenario is one in which very few vehicles are made, the vehicle population is very small, and the intensity of vehicle use is very low by current standards. The designs that today result from the collusion of big business and big government are quite incapable of handling such a scenario, and the maintenance of their viability is a major contributor to the perpetuation of an unsustainable pattern of centralized overproduction. What the X Prize calls for will merely exascerbate the problem.

The primary practical aim of the Automotive Y Prize is therefore a vehicle that can be made locally and in small numbers by organizations that do not have the power to set the automotive agenda in the world.

The vehicle will comprise a base design that can be freely adapted at any level by any fabricator who chooses to do so. In this it represents a proposed technological vernacular and the cultivation of a future dynamic tradition. The design will not belong to anyone, and should therefore be as easy to copy as possible. It follows that the design represents only a starting point, and that perhaps a majority of those produced will vary considerably from the base specification.

Requirements:

1. Fuel efficiency: This is to be appropriate to the role the vehicle is intended to play in its context; that is, optimum rather than maximum efficiency, taking cognizance of the organizational and capital requirements of any given technology and the socio-ecological consequences thereof.

2. Climate change: Greenhouse/carbon emissions are to be considered in terms of the automotive phenomenon as a whole rather than simple mass-per-distance, and all systemic aspects of vehicle use, land use and settlement patterns, vehicle manufacture and repair, fuel production, etc. should be considered together.

3. Emissions: It should be recognised that the “traditional” controlled emissions, i.e. CO, HC, and NOx, readily deteriorate to harmless compounds if the intensity of their production is low enough. Current standards are not so much intended to clean air as to enable traffic. Emissions should be reasonably clean without recourse to “smog equipment”, i.e. anything someone seeking greater utility might be tempted to remove.

4. Safety: Being made by people who are no more powerful than the people who use the vehicle, responsibility for safety is expected to be shared fairly. Death-traps are not sought, but vehicles are not expected to be moron-proof. It is assumed that the intensity of traffic will be very low and, because driving will not be a daily necessity, it is not unreasonable to expect a certain level of technical understanding and skill from drivers. The standard of safety will be of the lights, brakes, and common sense variety.

5. Legislation: It follows that the vehicle will most likely be highly illegal in most parts of the world. Part of the purpose of the exercise is to illustrate precisely that point. A legislative framework is to be assumed that does not so saddle manufacturers with burdens of proof of compliance and other legal technicalities as to render larger, more powerful, more centralized organizations more viable.

6. Cost: Exploding the myth of “economies of scale” is a large part of the brief. Vehicles are to be reasonably affordable to those who would choose to operate them, in the context of the scenario outlined above, when produced at double- or even single-digit annual volumes.

7. Features: The vehicle is not intended to spend a lot of time in gridlock, so little is considered necessary in terms of creature comforts. Because the design is to be open-ended it should be possible to include as much or as little as one sees fit, during manufacture or at any time after, through anyone’s agency. It would seem reasonable that a heater at least should be optional from new.

8. Appropriate energy source: The choice of fuel or other energy source should be considered as part of the local community ecosystem.

9. Bad-roads capability: It is assumed that road infrastructure will cease to be as important in the scheme of things as it is now. Suspension design will be important.

10. Low-volume production: Single-purpose tooling should be avoided. All tooling should be affordable to a small business.

11. Owner-fixability: All parts, including the vehicle structure if possible, should be easily handled by a single person. All components should be sensibly accessible for service, repair, replacement, or general messing-about-with. All repairs are to be possible by replacing only what is actually defective. All components are therefore to be repairable: no sealed units. Field-reparability is also required.

12. Appropriate materials and components: Use of plastics and electronics should be considered very carefully. Specifications should be flexible to allow the substitution of locally-available materials.

13. Configurability: Designs should be such as to allow a variety of passenger- and goods-body, as well as performance and terrain-capability, configurations.

14. Durability: Vehicles should last several centuries if adequately serviced. Long-term durability should take precedence over short-term reliability. Vehicles should be rebuildable and reconfigurable. Vehicles should be capable of existing independently of their original manufacturers, and should actively accommodate later work by others.

15. Creative liberty: Designs should accommodate the autonomous and collaborative creative inputs of as many people as possible in all aspects of production. The manufacture of each individual example should be a creative process. The creative capacity of all people should be respected, and the use thereof considered a primary and precious right.

Base-line performance:

Top speed: 75mph/120km/h. Acceleration 0-60mph/0-100km/h: 16 seconds. Some actual iterations might exceed these figures by a prodigious margin, depending on individual requirements.

Classes:

Small vehicle: maximum dry mass 1650lbs/750kg; vehicle variously configurable to carry driver and 1100lbs/500kg of passengers or goods. A four-passenger hatchback should be one of the possible configurations.

Large vehicle: vehicle variously configurable as 1-ton truck, minibus, ambulance, hearse, fire appliance, or large touring-car, and able to carry driver and 2650lbs/1200kg of passengers or goods.

The designs are to be submitted in the form of drawings and specifications, as actually building these things might leave participants vulnerable to State violence.

The prize has no monetary value. Participants will have to be content with the well-wishes of their peers. Perhaps, if there is enough interest, we can all chip in and buy a second-hand Prius to which the winner may set fire at the prize-giving ceremony.