100 Years after the Ford Model T, what does the future hold for our cars? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=506493&in_page_id=1965 Automotive X Prize http://auto.xprize.org/ Howstuffworks: "How Electric Cars Work" [Macromedia Flash Player] http://auto.howstuffworks.com/electric-car.htm Aptera [Macromedia Flash Player] http://www.aptera.com/ Classic Car Commercials http://www.tvparty.com/vaultcomm.html Walkable Communities [pdf] http://www.walkable.org/ Americans love their automobiles, and the quickly expanding ranks of the middle-class in India and China feel the same way about this particular form of transportation. Unfortunately, the majority of cars produced around the world are still powered by variations on the internal combustion engine, which has had some rather deleterious effects on the environment. In recent months, journalists and engineers have been paying more attention to groups of innovators around the country who are competing to build a 100-mile-per-gallon car. Some of these groups hope to enter their car in the running for the Automotive X Prize, which will award $10 million to the team that both builds this car and then wins a race against other green vehicles. All of the successful entries must produce less than 200 grams of greenhouse gases per mile, get at least 100 miles per gallon, and also be economically viable, which might be the hardest part of this challenge. "If we do this right, we're going to draw a line in the sand and say all the cars we drove before this date are relegated to the history museums", notes Peter Diamandis, Founder and Chairman of the X Prize Foundation. Interest from large traditional auto manufacturers in the contest has been minimal, but teams from downstate Illinois to central California continue to look forward to 2009, when the remainder of the qualifying races will be held. The first link offered here will take users to a nice piece from the December 2007 edition of Wired Magazine. Along with learning about the Automotive X Prize, they can find out more about the teams working on this project. The second link leads to an article from this Sunday's Daily Mail by Michael Hanlon that delves into the past, present, and future of automotive technology. Moving on, the third link will whisk visitors away to the homepage of the Automotive X Prize. Here, visitors can learn about the competition, read their weblog, and read a bit more about their other activities. The fourth link will take users to a video-enhanced site that will teach interested parties how electric cars work. The fifth link leads to the homepage of Aptera, which is one of the companies working on making a fuel-efficient vehicle. For those who might be longing for a bit of old-school automotive history, the sixth link provides a selection of commercials for such legendary vehicles as the 1957 Plymouth Sport Suburban and the 1965 VW Bug. And finally, for those who are interested in creating and living in pedestrian friendly places, the last link provides access to resources for doing just that.