OptaMotive launches E. Rex
4/13/2010 12:00:00 PM
Before shipping the car to the "Shakedown" phase of the X-Prize competition, OptaMotive will hold a launch and naming event at 10 Am an Tuesday April 13th, at 3590 First Street in San Jose, CA. In attendance will be Yoriko Kishimoto the former Mayor of Palo Alto and current candidate for State Assembly, Jeff Janssen, advisor to San Jose's Mayor Chuck Reed, and Jerry Pohorsky, President of the Electric Auto Association of Silicon Valley.
4/5/10 Robot Champs to Launch Electric Vehicle in San Jose, CA Few people are aware that the reigning global champions of the RoboGames contest are based in
San Jose, CA. Their robot “Ziggy”, has been undefeated and in 1st place for the last 4 years.
These robot champs now have set their sights on a new goal: They are launching
an electric vehicle (EV) E. Rex on Tuesday April 13, 2010 10AM to compete in an
international alternative fuels competition. The Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE competition was created to inspire a new
generation of viable, safe and super-efficient vehicles that can achieve 100MPGe (100 miles per
gallon energy equivalent). It caught the eye of Michael Worry, RoboGames champ, who
immediately grasped that “while building the RoboGames robots is extremely fun and rewarding,
building an electric vehicle, which can help alleviate global warming, has much greater social
impact”. OptaMotive felt that they could leverage the expertise from hobbyist robot building to their
advantage. And, it turns out, they were right: Even though the company was formed less than a
year ago, and it is their first-ever attempt at building an automobile, OptaMotive is one of a
select group of teams from around the world that has survived all initial rounds of judging and is
therefore qualified to enter the “Shake Down” phase of the competition. They will be heading to
Michigan at the end of April to begin on-ground testing. “We found that the expertise in developing Ziggy is 100% applicable to this car endeavor: weight
optimization; the custom electronics; algorithm development and coding; as well as performance
under pressure,” says Robert Frankovich, OptaMotive Founder The builders of the EV are Silicon Valley engineers, many of whom work at Nuvation, a main
supporter. Unlike many other teams who are working on their competition entries full-time at
their companies, OptaMotive is a bootstrapped after-hours project out of a home garage. All of
the engineers have developed the EV out of their passion for building, as volunteers after work. “Our strategy has been to select best-in-class off-the-shelf components, allowing us to focus on
system optimization and integration. This has yielded incredible results in both driving
performance and efficiency,” says Mark Demers, an OptaMotive founder. The OptaMotive launch may be further proof that the cars of the future may have more to do
with digital than manufacturing design; that inventors will look more like Steve Jobs than Henry
Ford; and that the future auto industry may not come out of Detroit, Germany or Japan but out
of Silicon Valley. Before shipping their vehicle to the Michigan “Shake Down”, the OptaMotive team will hold the
launch and naming ceremony on Tuesday April 13th at 10AM at 3590 North 1st Street. Ziggy,
the 1st place combat robot, will also be on display. In attendance will be Yoriko Kishimoto, the
former Mayor of Palo Alto and current candidate for State Assembly; and Jeff Janssen, Sr. Policy
Advisor to Mayor Chuck Reed. If you are interested in marketing opportunities or learning more,
please contact info@optamotive.com.
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