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"   In our last update, we announced that the Cornell team had selected a Geo Metro as our mule car for the Automotive X Prize. Picking the right ride was an important step in developing our plug-in hybrid entry, but over the next semester the real hands-on work gets interesting. We&amp;#039;ve set an aggressive goal to have the vehicle up and running for reliability testing as early as this summer.   In the automotive industry, a mule is considered a throw-away chassis, used to test concepts and designs. While most people wouldn&amp;#039;t imagine our lowly Metro could serve as the basis for an auto revolution, we hope to see technology developed at Cornell eventually hitting the highway. This past weekend the team installed a small auxiliary fuel tank on the car, which can be physically detached and weighed on a sensitive scale to more accurately measure fuel consumption.   Next up are new rounds of testing\u2014both on a dynamometer and on the road\u2014to evaluate the current engine and transmission efficiencies over a range of driving conditions. We haven&amp;#039;t installed any of the hybrid components, so the current round of testing will serve as a base line for the car&amp;#039;s future performance.   Once mileage testing is complete, we&amp;#039;ll begin cutting up the car to begin the transformation into our plug-in hybrid. Next week, we&amp;#039;re planning to purchase the components\u00AD\u2014everything from batteries to the motor\u2014which will be 100 percent off-the-shelf. The key to our efforts will be ensuring that all parts function flawlessly as a powertrain system.  Our conversion is on a tight deadline, but with more than 100 team members, we&amp;#039;re well on our way to meeting the requirements set forth by the X Prize Foundation. The qualifying round of competition is scheduled to start at year&amp;#039;s end. At the New York Auto Show next month, the foundation plans to make some announcements, possibly about the size of the purse. We&amp;#039;re curious to see how much\u2014besides the environment\u2014is at stake. \u2014Phillip Bell, Cornell AXP founder, and Terence Davidovits, Cornell AXP team leader "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a2628/4251504/>