Automotive X-Prize Profile: BDCOTSRUS

Over the next few months and at a casual, intermittent pace, I’m going to use this blog to profile official contenders in the Progressive Automotive X-Prize. I’ll provide links so interested readers can explore them further, and I encourage you to post your opinions of each contender, their technologies, and how you think they’ll do in this extraordinary competition.

This entry looks at Team BDCOTSRUS out of Florida.

BDCOTSRUS

Vehicle name: BD 1, a 1986 Saturn with 186,000 miles on it

Class*: Mainstream

In the Mainstream class “specifications [are] derived from typical existing small, 5-passenger economy mixed-use vehicles.”

Key Technology

The BD 1 is a 1986 Saturn with a transmission that “stops working after about 10 miles”. They’re using readily available components and materials to transform the old Saturn into an extremely fuel efficient vehicle. What those components are, and what they’re doing with them, only they and the Foundation know right now, but whatever their plan, it was regarded as feasible—otherwise they wouldn’t be an official contender.

Goal: Team BDCOTSRUS intends to “convert an existing compact car to meet the fuel efficiency requirements while not re-inventing the production process.” They don’t believe that achieving this kind of fuel efficiency requires heretofore undiscovered technology—rather, that technology already exists.

Leader(s): Robert McNeill & Douglas Hungferford. McNeill is a mechanical, industrial and systems engineer with extensive experience in the automotive, medical and military industries and he’s a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). Hungferford, a member of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), is an electrical engineer with broad experience in design and manufacturing.

Financial backing: Sponsored by Office Suites PLUS, a “leading provider of full service office suites and virtual offices” and IDD (Integrated Design and Development), a materials manufacturer.

External links

• Home page: www.BDCOTSRUS.com
• Auto X-Prize page for BDCOTSRUS