Ingenious

October 14, 2013
Freelance journalist Fagone shadows four intriguing teams battling to win the X Prize, a grant of $10 million awarded to anyone who builds an efficient, mass-producible car capable of traveling 100 miles on a gallon of gas. Fagone says he’s “not a car person,” but he glowingly describes the X Prize’s creator, Peter Diamandis, whose challenge has encouraged more than 300 teams to go head to head for the honor. The author, with assistance from the contest’s committee, selects his subjects for their diversity. They include love-smitten Harry and Jen, who are working on a fiberglass body in a small Illinois community; a group of spunky West Philly school kids, who are building a pair of hybrids, with one earmarked for poorer drivers; Oliver Kuttner and his well-bankrolled Virginia team; and an ambitious California startup called Aptera Motors, which is building a sleek aerodynamic car. The book benefits from the author’s depiction of the labor and lives of its colorful, driven contestants of TV’s Dancing with the Stars. Anyone interested in how automobile dreams are born in this postbailout economy will delight in this fast, engaging read. Agent: Larry Weissman, Larry Weissman Literary.

October 1, 2013
The story of the teams who, for $10 million in prize money from the X Prize Foundation, are striving to make a car that will travel 100 miles on the equivalent of a gallon of gas. Journalist Fagone (Horsemen of the Esophagus: Competitive Eating and the Big Fat American Dream, 2007) heard about the competition offering that sizable payday and smelled a good story, and he makes the most of it here. Unlike the builders and the cars themselves, the author takes his leisurely time following the work of four teams and the construction of their brainchildren: the irrepressible, big-hearted Oliver and his ultralight entry; a team of West Philadelphia high schoolers; a crew from the cornfields of the Midwest; and a more professional team, which gets considerably less page space than the other three. For this is a story about the man on the street, "the democracy of it. Invention as an everyday pursuit." The teams sought to build a machine that would be efficient, responsive, cool and affordable. Fagone is not above raising an eyebrow at some of the loopiness that went on, but he never falls short of conveying the energy and spirit of the enterprises. Along the way, readers will pick up plenty of inside information on regenerative brakes, chromoly steel and how to reinvent the common lug nut to shave a pound off the car's weight. We also learn much about the personal lives of these inspired ordinary Joes and how they processed the setbacks and the bad news of losing. Fagone succeeds in making his subjects entirely relatable. "In the thick of the worst economic funk since the Great Depression, here were all these people working furiously in garages and warehouses and barns," he writes, "trying to hit a series of staggeringly difficult targets that no government, automaker, or inventor had ever achieved." A well-tooled, instructive tale of ingenuity.

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November 1, 2013
Fagone, author and journalist, tells the true story of the race to capture the Automotive X Prize, the $10 million offering by a California foundation to anyone who could make a safe, practical, 100-mile-per-gallon car. The only standard for winning was the quality of the machine, and all contestants were welcome, big companies and entrepreneurs alike. Fagone zeroed in on four teams, ordinary people striving to be extraordinary. We follow the teams with Fagone, including the winning entry, the Very Light Car built by the Virginia-based team Edison2. The author tells the remarkable stories of the contestants as they sought the prize money during the recent economic downturn and in the process transformed their lives with their creativity, courage, and determination. This is an entertaining book that offers insight and inspiration for a wide range of library patrons who could be thinking about inventing something that matters.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

June 15, 2013

More than 300 teams worldwide responded to sf enthusiast's Peter Diamandis's announcement that he would give $10 million to anyone who built an easily mass-produced car that could zoom 100 miles on the energy equivalent of a gallon of gas. Fagone follows four of the teams. First serial to the Atlantic.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2013

In 2007, entrepreneur Peter Diamandis, through his X Foundation, offered a $10 million prize to anyone who could build a mass-producible car that could achieve 100 miles per energy equivalent of a gallon of gas. Of the 136 competitors registered for the prize, only 41 made it to the final stage and took part in the four-month- long testing at the Michigan International Speedway in 2010. Fagone (Horsemen of the Esophagus: Competitive Eating and the Big Fat American Dream) chronicles the trials of four of the teams that made it past the first cut. Would the winner be Illinois government employee Kevin Smith of Illuminati Motor Works, using his unpaid furlough days to work on his car in his barn? Or the West Philly High School Hybrid X team led by teacher Simon Hauger? Edison2, a company headed by an eccentric German real estate dealer, had four vehicles in the competition, including the Very Light Car. California-based Aptera Motors had already produced a prototype three-wheeled vehicle but was unable to fund further production. VERDICT This is a well-told tale of invention, tribulations, and, yes, ingenuity. Car and green enthusiasts alike, from high school nerds to old-time readers of Popular Mechanics, will find this a ripping good tale.--Susan Belsky, Oshkosh P.L., WI

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.