WWU team up for $10 million prize for super-fuel-efficient car

On the first trip, they towed their custom-built hybrid car from Bellingham to Detroit in a trailer.

On the second trip, they saved money by driving it instead.

The handful of Western Washington University students laughed when they realized they actually spent more money hauling their lightweight hybrid, called the Viking 45, than they would have if they'd just driven it — because the car, which has a body akin to a Ferrari and the engine of a Honda Insight hybrid, gets 100 miles to the gallon.

The students make up the only college team still in the running for the X Prize, an international competition designed to find a super-fuel-efficient car that will reduce Americans' dependence on oil and change the future of transportation. The team will be in Detroit on Sunday for the competition finals. At stake: a $10 million prize for Western's Vehicle Research Institute.

Participating teams must build cars that get at least 100 miles to the gallon and can drive 200 miles at a stretch.

Already, the Bellingham team's car has withstood grueling engine and driving tests, besting 125 other cars in two elimination rounds in Detroit.

The Western group is one of 15 teams competing in the last round. If they pass the final tests — "and we will," said Eric Leonhardt, the professor in charge of the team — their car will get boxed up, sent to a lab and examined for two "torturous" months before they learn the outcome.

Leonhardt said he first heard about the competition in 1996, but the idea "hadn't taken off largely because of the low cost of petroleum." Now, he said, there's a bigger motivation to make a difference because prices have risen and so have environmental concerns.

"We've got our global-warming issues. And if you don't buy that, we've got our Middle East security issues. And if you don't buy that, you've got the rising price of fuel" and the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, he said.

Leonhardt said he and some students started building a car for the competition about five years ago, and since then, more than 40 students have been involved. The students get partial class credit but won't get any prize money if their team wins.

The project has cost an estimated $100,000, Leonhardt said. But it would have cost more without help from family, friends, WWU professors and community members who have fundraised for months and held one last money-raiser last week at Nona Rosa's Italian restaurant in downtown Bellingham.

Companies and individuals from all over the map have chipped in to support the team. Odyssey Foods of New Jersey donated a truck and trailer rig so the group could transport the car to Michigan International Speedway for the first round of tests. Parents donated a minivan and a motorhome so the students could travel to Detroit together. Students and professors from the university's math department and College of Business and Economics donated their time by drawing up a business plan, creating a budget and calculating fuel efficiency, among other things.

"Everybody was just so passionate about it, and it was infectious," said WWU international business and Chinese major Sophia McCloy, who helped draw up the team's business plan, coordinated publicity and often brought team members pizza and brownies when they spent late nights in the shop.

WWU junior Andrew Brady said the opportunity to change the future of transportation, along with the impressive experience he can now add to his résumé, was what drove him to work so hard. Brady and fellow team member Leif Olsen said they often stayed awake for three days straight working on the car.

"I'd go home and take a shower and be like, 'That counts as a nap, right?' " Olsen said.

Team member Jonathan Bremer said he'd be elated to win the competition, but the outcome isn't really what matters. The project, he said, has transformed them all. Before they got involved, they were mere college kids. Now they're experienced, confident adults ready to tackle the real world.

"We used to have 'team leaders,' " he said. "But we're all leaders now."

Jill Kimball: 206-464-2136 or jkimball@seattletimes.com