PASADENA, Calif., Feb. 21 — The Automotive X Prize appears to be taking shape. We spent some time at the competition's headquarters here and met with Executive Director Mark Goodstein to find out the latest developments since we last talked.

The Automotive X Prize comes from the same folks who developed the Ansari X Prize. This time the purse may well be double that of the $10-million space prize payout. The challenge? To build a viable, production-capable vehicle that can deliver in excess of 100 mpg or its equivalent fuel economy.

“These cars must be production viable in quantities of 10,000 or more as judged by industry experts," says Goodstein. "We want to prevent the million-dollar fuel-cell car from entering, as well as the technically competent but ugly 'bubble car.'"

In a recent poll, the X Prize Foundation learned that a whopping 82 percent of those surveyed believed it was overwhelmingly important to develop a 100-mpg car within the next five years. Goodstein admits that this isn’t absolute proof that people want to own super high mileage cars. But it’s certainly significant.

“Our goal is to inspire a new generation of super fuel-efficient vehicles that will stem the effects of climate change and our dependence on oil. If we can end up doubling overall fuel economy, we just saved a billion tons of CO2 in the atmosphere per year,” he says.

The rules for the Automotive X Prize are still being fine-tuned. But Goodstein says they are about 80 percent finalized. The rules will be released for public comment in April, likely at the New York Auto Show.

“We’ve been working on the rules for a long time now with a world class board of advisors,” he says.

Once the rules are announced, teams will be signed up and begin competing sometime in 2008. Goodstein expects many of them to come from the automotive industry supplier base—a group whose sometimes-revolutionary technical advancements often never see the light of day.

“We’ve heard the story over and over again: There is more innovation and technologically extraordinary breakthroughs happening at the supplier and OEM level than you can imagine," he says. "But it will never reach the market because of cost."

The Automotive X prize competition should give those brilliant minds a practical showcase and testbed for many of their ideas and technologies.

“This is a stage for new technologies that we’re creating, and we’re going to shine a very bright spotlight on that stage. The bigger and brighter the spotlight, the greater the impact we’ll have on the environment and on the companies involved in the competition,” says Goodstein.

We’ll have more news about the Automotive X Prize as soon as it becomes available. —Ben Stewart