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" Cornell University&amp;#039;s attempt to win the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize ended two weeks ago in disappointment. After making it through the first round of elimination, the team withdrew from the competition because of an as-yet-unexplained malfunction that damaged a circuit board.  Cornell&amp;#039;s entry, a series hybrid plug-in dubbed Redshift, uses a diesel engine to recharge its lithium batteries. As the team explains, those Taiwan-sourced batteries were the likely source of trouble. &amp;quot;We have two types of circuitry: One monitors battery life, and the other monitors temperature and turns the battery pack off if necessary,&amp;quot; says professor Albert George, the Cornell team&amp;#039;s co-adviser. &amp;quot;We had failures in the boards that monitor how much electricity is left.&amp;quot;  George cites safety concerns as the reason for the team&amp;#039;s voluntary exit from the competition. &amp;quot;We didn&amp;#039;t know if something was going wrong elsewhere in the battery\u2014there&amp;#039;s something like 350 volts running around the [battery] packs,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;With that much DC voltage, once you vaporize a passageway, it will continue on like a welding arc until disaster happens, and we couldn&amp;#039;t risk that kind of voltage in the car.&amp;quot; Team leader Dave Zlotnick, an electrical engineering student, maintains that the issue might have been caught beforehand if the Cornell team had had a chance to test the car before they departed for the second round at Michigan International Speedway. &amp;quot;We only got 150 to 200 miles in testing,&amp;quot; Zlotnick says. &amp;quot;Then we had to waterproof the electronic components and basically rebuild the car.&amp;quot; X Prize officials gave the Cornell team an 8-hour extension to complete their waterproofing, and &amp;quot;We passed through inspection with no problem,&amp;quot; Zlotnick says. But when they turned the car on in preparation to set off for the 36-mile durability test, they heard a strange noise. &amp;quot;We realized it had to be an issue with the batteries.&amp;quot; Time management, or academic scheduling, was partly to blame. &amp;quot;We should&amp;#039;ve pushed harder at the end of May,&amp;quot; Zlotnick says. After finals, the team had only three weeks to complete work on the car. &amp;quot;If we&amp;#039;d started right away,&amp;quot; Zlotnick maintains, &amp;quot;we may have had a few days to test with all the components installed.&amp;quot;  After three and a half years of work on its X-Prize car, Cornell is not about to call it quits. &amp;quot;We don&amp;#039;t want to just drop this thing,&amp;quot; George says. &amp;quot;We want to drive it around, and show people what can be done with hybrid designs like ours,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;After the competition, we are going to put our engineering and test results online, open source, for use by others to further the development of high efficiency vehicles.&amp;quot; Zlotnick pledges that the team will not stop until Redshift is rebuilt and ready for testing by a third party. According to Cornell&amp;#039;s calculations, they need to average 120 mpg to meet the X Prize&amp;#039;s strict emissions requirements for four-passenger cars.  The final round of the Automotive X Prize begins July 15. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/hybrid-electric/a5916/why-cornell-withdrew-from-the-x-prize/>