The VDS Vision 100 is designed to thrive in the busy streets of India. Our entry is both a car and much more importantly, a strategy to deal with congestion and enable development in a way that we believe will lead to more vibrant, safe and enjoyable urban centers. The vehicle itself will carry 5-passengers and cargo. The use model focuses on an integrated clean energy and mobile technology infrastructure to allow people, information and electricity to flow to just the right places at just the right times. In all of our decision making, we try to keep what we have termed a safety triptych in mind, meaning we emphasize occupant, pedestrian and environmental safety (as well as associated national security implications).

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For the vehicle, we selected a series-hybrid core powertrain to keep the fuel source flexible and have run innumerate simulations to size the batteries, electric motor and on-board generator to minimize cost and maximize performance. The suspension is being designed around a diverse set of rough road conditions and with the expectation of both very dry and also monsoon seasons. A number of innovative body materials and elements designed to be bought once and used for a number of purposes should make the vehicle light and extremely strong. For environmental performance, we have gone beyond an mpg rating and are using the GaBi software to move towards a goal of using only 5% of the materials and energy cradle-to-grave that go into the Toyota Prius.

As a project, we are using MIT Prof. Charlie Fine's three-dimensional concurrent engineering to develop the vehicle, manufacturing process and supply chain concurrently. We believe this will enable us to have a vehicle that is easy to build, use, repair and disassemble at the end of its life.

If you are interested in helping us to establish demand for our vehicle, consider joining the Our Shared Vision campaign (aka 200 MPG 4 ME). Members not only help us to estimate how many people would like a vehicle like this, but more importantly allows you to contribute to our development process.

The Team:
The MIT VDS AXP is a spin-out group of the MIT Vehicle Design Summit project. The team is coordinated by a strategy and engineering team at MIT but draws team members from all around the world. The aim is to provide an opportunity for research groups and companies with cutting edge ideas that enable breakthrough efficiency and superior performance to work together.

We are collaborating with Stylus Automotive and Sanghamitra Datta to refine the design developed by the team at TUDelft. Last summer, Torino Design, Landra S.r.l. and FSGroup S.r.l. (fsgroups.com/) together supported our team in completed a first prototype in Torino, Italy and we are deeply indebted to each of these companies for their advise and support.

We are still accepting new team members and international partners and look forward to enabling as many people as possible to contribute to and benefit from the vehicle's development.

VDS aims to use Prof. Deborah Ancona's XTeams paradigm to create high-performing teams capable of seamlessly leveraging international expertise. We thank SolidWorks for providing a shared CAD platform to allow all teams to work in the same virtual environment.

About the Vehicle Design Summit (VDS):
The mission of the MIT Vehicle Design Summit team is to catalyze an Energy Space Race: to identify the key characteristics of events like the race to the moon or civil rights movement and then transpose this energy, passion, focus and urgency to the multitude of global challenges (and opportunities) facing humanity and the planet in this day and age.

To achieve this end, VDS will begin by assembling a global consortium of the world's leading thinkers, dreamers, revolutionaries and change agents to develop the collaborative framework necessary to harness the world's genius, imagination and inspiration.

To give this initiative an initial focal point for experimentation, innovation and philosophical development the global consortium will design, build and bring to market the VDS Vision 200, a hyper-efficient 6 passenger vehicle earmarked for India that will demonstrate a 95% reduction in embodied energy, materials and toxicity from cradle-to-cradle-to-grave relative to the Prius. We look forward to entering the VDS Vision 100 in the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE.