Joy-Seeker's Prosperity Game Blog

Day 128 of the Prosperity Game – inner city high school in Philadelphia

Gizmag.com had a really interesting post on their site today about the West Philadelphia High School Academy for Automotive and Mechanical Engineering. These high school students have entered two cars in the the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. The first uses the chassis of a Ford Focus and uses both gasoline and biobutanol.

  The second car is the Factory Five GT based EVX GT sports car and it is a two-seat biodiesel hybrid sports car that can go from 0-60 in less than 5 seconds.

“Both units incorporate an Azure Dynamics electric motor and 10.2kWh Lithium Iron Phosphate battery pack, with the EVX GT featuring a VW TDI 1.9l engine. The TDI will have a particulate matter trap that the team says will meet and exceed the emissions requirements of less than 200 grams of CO2 per mile.”

What is interesting about this competition, is that these inner city high school students are competing against University students to Silicon Valley Think tanks to other teams from around the world. Not only that, but they have competed in the National Tour de Sol and won in 2002, 2005 and 2006.

I think it is wonderful that a high school offers such a unique automotive class, they are also in search of donations to help the team. I would like to give today’s $128,000 to the West Philly Hybrid X team.