Local team building 'super-car'
Hope that hybrid SUV will reach 100 mpg

Except for its bright green exterior, at the moment this late 1980s Chevy Blazer looks pretty much like any other gas-guzzling, pollution-spewing sport utility vehicle on the road. But when a team of local engineers and mechanics are finished tricking it out, it will get at least 100 miles per gallon, accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in at least 12 seconds, and emit a fraction of the carbon emissions of a regular car.

That’s the plan, at least.

“This is a green revolution,” said Jim Stansbury, founder of the Physics Lab of Lake Havasu. “100 years ago we had the industrial revolution. This is going to be an energy revolution.”

Physics Lab has officially entered the Automotive X Prize, a global competition to design a fast, super-efficient car that hopes to pave the road to energy independence.

The grand prize? Ten million dollars — and the chance to save the world from oil dependence and global warming.

The contest is divided into “city” cars, which can have three wheels and smaller passenger capacity, and four-wheel, four passenger cars for longer distances.

Stansbury, an anesthesiologist at Havasu Regional Medical Center, has long kindled more than a dabbler’s interest in physics. He said that the competition will be fierce, and taking the top prize will be extraordinarily difficult. But winning is not what drives him.

“Will I be disappointed if I don’t win?” he said. “No. Everybody’s going to win in this thing. It’s an awakening of civilization.”

His team’s goal is to create a big, green car — an SUV, one of the most popular car models on the road — but to give it a green twist. “People want SUV’s,” he said. “We thought, why not flip this thing on its head? We’ll start from what people want and reverse-engineer it from there.”

The first step will be stripping the engine and transmission from the Blazer, which will eventually run solely on electric power. Andy Lawler, owner of Challenger Automotive and Arizona Racing Accessories, is the chief mechanic on the project.

“It’s a challenge,” Lawler said. “The whole thing here is that you want it as strong and light as possible.”

An electric DC motor will power all four wheels, drawing juice from lead acid or lithium-ion batteries. Solar panels on the roof and sides will allow the car to soak up power from the sun’s rays, and a small diesel generator — with hydrogen boost — will give the car added range and speed.

Even if his team fails to take the top prize, Stansbury was confident that his work would find an application in the real world.

“There’s an acceptance of the fact that we need to move on from oil,” he said. “We have to learn to adapt, improvise and overcome.”

A car that runs on sunlight, electric batteries and a little diesel was a good start, he said.

“Soon, more and more people will be driving electric cars,” he said. “I want a Blazer that gets 100 miles per gallon and can recharge its batteries sitting out in the sun.

In Stansbury’s opinion, sun-soaked Havasu might just be the ideal place for a solar-powered car. “While you’re at work, your batteries are recharging,” he said. “It’s baking out there, but it’s charging up for your ride home.”

The team is gathering advertising sponsors and other partners, and hopes to lobby for Lake Havasu City as one of twenty “host” cities for the competition’s preliminary events.

www.physiclablh.com

http://auto.xprize.org/