Eco–Car Race is On

This year, the future of the motorcar may be decided not in the BMW boardroom, nor on the Fiat factory floor, but around the kitchen table of a home inventor with a very big idea. Such is the democratising power of the Automotive X Prize, or AXP, which will offer a $10m (�5.1m) pot and a manufacturing deal to whoever can design and build the world's fastest car that will do 100 miles per gallon or better and be suitable for mass production. "The beauty of a prize like this is that you can never say who's going to win," says Cristin Lindsay, one of AXP's senior directors. "When Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic to win the Orteig Prize, he was the underdog. Nobody believed he could win with only the backing of a few people in St Louis." The competition and its rules won't be formally announced until March, yet already more than 50 teams from eight countries are committed to taking part. Some of their designs, from the Knight Rider styling of the Avion, which its creators claim is "the lightest car made in America", to the ladybird-like three-wheeler of German team Twike, are already in the public domain � though modifications may be required once the rules are clarified.