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News 06.30.09 - Local Automotive X PRIZE competitor Illuminati Motor Works interviewed on WICS ABC 20 Video. (Iggy Uncensored) 06.29.09 - New blog post. Innovation, by Jen Danzinger 06.28.09- IMW on WICS News. We were featured on WICS News Channel 20 on 6/28, and on Sunrise News (6/29). Click here for video. 06.07.09 - New Blog post: "New Co-Sponsor and Vehicle Design Change," by Kevin Smith 06.01.09 - Electric Vehicle Components LLC became a co-sponsor of Team IMW. 04.08.09 - Illuminati Motor Works are now listed as an official team registered in the Progressive Automotive X Prize competition. 9.30.08 View "The Race for the Car of the Future" documentary. Tegenlicht, VPRO, Netherlands, aired September 29, 2008 and will repeat October 14, 2008. Click here for English translation of web page. (The intro is in Dutch but the majority of it is in English. IMW appears throughout. Click here for the video.) Our Sponsors
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Illuminati Motor Works
Official Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Contender
Current team lineup: (front l-r): Josh Spradlin, George Kennedy, Kevin Smith. (back l-r): Nate Knappenburger, Thomas Pasko
The Goal of the Automotive X PRIZE (AXP) is to inspire a new generation of viable, super-efficient vehicles to help break our addiction to oil and stem the effects of climate change.
Illuminati Motor Works is a group of engineers, automotive technicians, graphic artists and car enthusiasts who have worked on alternative means of transport and alternative energy for many decades in their professional and personal lives. Our team members have built electric, solar electric, series hybrid mini Baja, natural gas fuel injected parallel hybrid, and stored are super charged fuel injected vehicles and have competed in the 1995 Hybrid Electric Vehicle and 1996 Future Car challenges. We have worked for a variety of companies including Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and GM where we did circuit and system design, programmed and completed prototyping for the EV and HEV programs.
Together we bring a unique set of abilities and diverse backgrounds from which to attack the challenges as set forth by the Automotive X PRIZE. Our preliminary design work supported by hands on experience gained through our collective histories led us to believe that we can not only meet but exceed the performance goals of this competition:
- We are at a remarkable moment in time when promising new automotive technologies can meet growing consumer demand. AXP's goal is to be a catalyst to foster market adoption of more fuel efficient, clean vehicle options.
- Our addiction to oil is hurting consumers, undermining the economy, exacerbating international conflicts, damaging the environment, and threatening the health of the planet.
- We want to connect the technological innovations and capabilities of inventors and entrepreneurs with the practical desires of the car-buying public.
- The transportation sector currently uses 40 percent of the world's petroleum supply. Only through such a paradigm shift will our dependence on oil be reduced.
The AXP competition is all about building practical and clean cars that will achieve 100 MPG or its equivalent. Our underlying design strategy, a battery electric vehicle, BEV, employs clever engineering of simple low cost components. This strategy reminiscent of KISS, Keep It Simple Silly, will be carried throughout our vehicle design and construction. Not only is the competition to meet or exceed 100 MPGe while maintaining driver comfort, safety and performance but it must produce a technically and economically viable vehicle that can be mass-produced and brought to market. This isn't a competition for competition sake, it is for the sake of our society and our continued existence on this planet. Earth will survive whether we do or not. It is within our ability to decide whether we are here to stay; it's just going to take some innovation and a lot of hard work.
Illuminati Motor Works (IMW) “Seven” is a four seat, BEV. The vehicle has dual modular design enabling both its drive train and body components to be swapped out. This concept allows bolt on adaptation of a hybrid drive train that can take advantage of many different fuels including Diesel, BioDiesel, Ethanol, and natural gas and body styles including the four door sedan and truck versions. The design flexibility coupled with its other strengths will allow for quick market adoption of the vehicle.
Our approach has already drawn the attention of international publishers such as WIRED magazine and Sanlain Lifeweek.
However sound and exciting our approach, we will not be able to bring this about on our own; each of us has a day job with which we support our families. That is where you come in. We are seeking sponsorship to help bring about the needs of the many. However few we may be, we have developed a viable design which maintains the performance attributes to which the consumer has become accustomed while extending fuel economy by 500%. We are asking for your help. A donation to this cause in the form of a monetary or components donation and/or a partnership of the best that each of us has to offer.
