Editor’s note: This week, Ecotality’s Bill Hobbs takes a look at the Automotive X-Prize, a competition to develop a 100mpg automobile. This post was originally published on August 2, 2007.

The Automotive X-Prize has announced the first 31 teams accepted into their competition to create a commercially viable car that gets at least 100mpg. Among the teams accepted: Tesla Motors, Zap, Phoenix Motorcars, Fuel Vapor Technology and Team Velozzi. According to organizers over 300 teams have expressed interest in the competition and are considering jumping in. Commercial viability is a key criteria for picking the winner - the teams must demonstrate not just performance but also business plan showing that they can sell at least 10,000 of their vehicles annually.

Here’s the press release…

The Automotive X PRIZE (AXP), a competition designed to inspire a new generation of viable, super-efficient vehicles to help break our addiction to oil and stem the effects of climate change, announced today that over 30 teams have signed a letter of intent to compete once the prize is officially funded and launched.

The international competition, in which qualified teams will compete head to head, aims to dramatically increase consumer access to ultra-efficient, clean, affordable and desirable vehicles. The 30 plus teams include diverse groups from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and Switzerland. More than 300 additional teams have inquired about joining and are actively considering entry.

“We are thrilled with the wide variety of teams and technologies from around the world that have expressed an interest in joining the competition,” said Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, CEO and Chairman, X PRIZE Foundation. “We are confident that the Automotive X PRIZE will motivate and bring visibility to a range of non-traditional solutions from both traditional and non-traditional players. The time for incremental change is over. We need radical breakthroughs to stem the consumption of fossil fuels. An X PRIZE can help make this happen.”

The independent and technology-neutral AXP competition is open to teams from around the world to prove they can design, build and bring to market 100 MPG or equivalent fuel economy vehicles that people want to buy. Industry experts will scrutinize team plans. Those that qualify will race their vehicles in rigorous cross-country stages that combine speed, distance, urban driving and overall performance. The winners will be the vehicles that exceed 100 MPG equivalent, fall under strict emissions caps and finish in the fastest time.

The Automotive X-Prize is from the same folks who created the Ansari X-Prize for the first successful private-sector rocket launch to reach space.

The competition is intended to be technology-neutral, meaning the vehicles don’t have to run on gasoline, and indeed many of the teams entering the competition are proposing vehicles that don’t use gasoline at all. As the presser explains, the winning vehicle must get “100 MPG or equivalent fuel economy,” though how equivalence is calculated isn’t explained.

The following 30 teams have signed a letter of intent signaling their intent to apply for the AXP competition:

• Aptera Motors - California, USA
• Commuter Cars Corp. - Washington, USA
• Cornell University - New York, USA
• DEHyds - Washington, USA
• Delta Motorsport - Northants, UK
• Desert Fuel - Arizona, USA
• Disruptech - California, USA
• Dragonfly Technology LTD - Northhampton, UK
• Fuel Vapor Technologies - British Columbia, Canada
• GreenIt! - Oregon, USA
• Herf Duo - Berlin, Germany
• HyKinesys - California, USA
• Kinetic Vehicles - Oregon, USA
• Kuttner Doran Inventions - Virginia, USA
• Loremo AG - Munich, Germany
• Maine Automotive X - Maine, USA
• MDI, Inc. & Zero Pollution Motors LLC - New York, USA
• Michigan Vision - Michigan, USA
• MotoTron Corporation - Wisconsin, USA
• Phoenix Motorcars - California, USA
• Porteon Electric Vehicles, Inc. - Oregon, USA
• Prometheus Systems, LLC - Arizona, USA
• Psycho-Active - Georgia, USA
• Roane Inventions - Texas, USA
• Society for Sustainable Mobility - California, USA
• Spirit One - Alberta, Canada
• Valentin Technologies - Wisconsin, USA
• Tesla Motors - California, USA
• Velozzi - California, USA
• X Tracer - Winterthur, Switzerland
• ZAP Motors - California, USA

The prize: an as yet unannounced sum of millions of dollars. The Ansari X-Prize for space flight was $10 million.